Little Blue Heron

I posted about this bird that we saw in the Western Caribbean a few months ago.  I seem to have neglected to post the picture to the "Free Printable Downloads" list.  .   . so people could print it to color.   This is called a Little Blue Heron.  It was seen in Mexico at a Mayan Pyramids site.

Little Blue Heron

Father's Day or Salute to Dads, Stepdads, and Grandpas

This post took too long and is very late.  Our main computer went on the fritz so we tried to do this on a Chromebook.   We did the best we could...only got 2 drawings on the blog by Father's Day.  We just got back off vacation so that was also a problem.  Maybe I'll re=post these next year, a few days before Father's Day.   I suppose that these cards I drew could be either given late or you could use them next year.  I am posting more cards and pictures now that I got  my main computer fixed.  It may be close to time to buy a new laptop computer.


Father's day is when we say thanks to the fathers and even stepfathers who have made a difference in our lives.  Many fathers are hard working men who strive to make a living and still make time to connect with their kids.

Mustached Father with Daughter
Girls, print this card, fold it in half, color it, fold it in half, and give it to your dad. . .
even if it is a day late.

Father and Son

Boys, print this card, fold it in half, color it, fold it in half, and give it to your dad. . .
even if it is a day late.

T. rex father cares for his chick.  
Boys or girls, print this card, color it, fold it in half, and give it to your dad. . . even if it is a day late.

Young male Pteranodon chick taking flying lesson from his dad.
This is another a printable card.

Young female Pteranodon chick taking flying lessons from her dad.  
Note that eyelashes are the cartooning trick to make a character female.
This is also a printable card.

Grandfather T. rex with grandson

Lets also give credit to our grandfathers and the good that they do.  By the way, mounting evidence is saying that T. rex and other Theropods may have lived in packs.  So perhaps an elderly T. rex grandpa may have helped care for the chicks.  Of course the dinosaurs did not speak English.

Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem

I thought of what a good husband and stepfather Joseph was. Joseph took his wife on a journey for the Roman census and was in touch with the Spirit to receive guidance I am sure.

Jesus at age 17 with Joseph, His Stepfather

We may not think about it much, but Joseph was the stepfather of our Lord Jesus, must have taught Jesus the carpentry trade. Here we see them working together when Jesus was a young man of 17. I have known stepfathers that were great men. My own son's stepfather is a good man. I think that a good father or stepfather is, in my opinion, one of the the signs of a real man. I know one man who has been able to adopt several stepchildren. Kudos to him and all stepfathers who do their best.

I think we sometimes forget that Jesus was a real person and had to grow up. There are very few pictures of Jesus as a young man. So I drew this because I thought of Jesus as an older teenager, just getting his beard. He, Jesus probably learned the carpentry trade from his stepfather Joseph. Here they are working together in Joseph's carpentry shop.

Two Mythical Creatures

A Medieval Dragon

A dragon is possibly an animal that came to be in our minds as the human race...when dinosaur and / or Pterosaur fossilized skeletons were found by Man in ancient civilizations.  One theory that is had...IF dragons had been real...is that they had bodies filled with lighter than air gas, like Hydrogen or Methane.  First you need to understand that the amu is the atomic mass units in an atom or a molecule.  Each neutron or proton in the nucleus of an atom has a mass of 1 amu.  Hydrogen is the smallest atom and a Hydrogen molecule has an atomic weight of only 2 amu.  That makes Hydrogen gas the least dense of any substance found in the Universe.  The atomic weight of Methane is 16.  Air has an atomic weight of around 28-29 amu.  So, since air is way more dense than Hydrogen or Methane then perhaps dragons (if they were real) would have been able to fly because the gas made them much less dense . . . or lighter than air.  The gas would have to be methane or hydrogen because of course dragons could shoot fire.  So the gas has to be hydrogen or methane because they can burn.  A dragon full of Helium would be able to fly, but not shoot fire.

Land Iguana in Mexico

The closest thing I've seen to a dragon would probably be Marine Iguanas in the Galapagos and Land Iguanas in Ecuador, the Galapagos, and Mexico.  They can get over 4 feet long!  I don't think that they fly or breathe fire though.  I took this photo.

Unicorn being friends with a Squirrel

Unicorns are reported to be very magical and that magic is always good magic...light magic etc.  There is no such thing as a bad unicorn.  They are always depicted as kind and good.  So I could see them being friends with other magical creatures..as well as non-magical creatures like squirrels.

Unicorn Drawing with Pastel Chalk

The closest thing I've seen to a real unicorn is a horse, specifically my neice's horse that I drew and turned into a Unicorn in the drawing.  It's a non-traditional unicorn...it is not white.

All images in this post and all posts on my blog to this point are 

Copyright Robin Andrew Lyman 2005-2017. 

Short Eared Owl from the Galapagos Islands

Short Eared Owl 

There is a specific sub-species of Short Eared Owl that live in the Galapagos Islands.  They are found on many of the islands.  They hunt smaller birds.  The island they live on has lots of volcanic caves that are all over the lava field.  OK, I admit, it is a cooled lava field so it is made up of Basalt.  The short eared owls will sneak into a cave where one of the prey birds live and when that bird comes home it gets grabbed, killed and eaten.  These owls sneak around like a cat when they are hunting.  As frequently happens on islands, the limited food supply leads to the Galapagos Short Eared Owl to be smaller than its mainland cousins.  The Basalt on the islands is oxidized to be a brown color and the owl's brown spotted feathers are perfect camouflage.  So if you color this drawing...the rocks and the owl are brown,and tan, but not black.  When lava first cools it IS black, but it oxidizes in the rain and sun and turns brown.  

The sub-species of the Galapagos Short Eared Owl has the scientific name of :  

 Asio flammeus galapagoensis.

Torvosaurusvs Allosaurus & Rhamphorhyncus

Torvosaurus with Rhamphorhynchus

Torvosaurus is a type of Allosaur that was REALLY big.  Don't get confused.  A Torvosaurus is possibly a type of Allosaur, but it was NOT Allosaurus.  Torvosaurus had a much bigger skull and larger overall size compared to the Allosaurus. They lived in the Late Jurassic Period, at the same time, however the widely known Allosaurs was clearly not the top predator in this ancient ecosystem.  There are few remains of Torvosaurus, compared to many skeletons of Allosaurus.  There are some main differences in the two Theropod dinosuars.  Torvosaurus had a heavier overall or more robust build.  That makes Allosaurs more gracile. Robust means big or hefty, while gracile means lightly built or thinner.  The many specimens found of Allosaurus (over 40) while only a few Torvosaurs are known....they have been found in Portugal and in the Western US near the Utah/Colorado border.

Both animals were around 40 ft (12 m) long at the biggest, but agian, Torvosaurus was much more robust.  Both had the "S-curve" neck but the head of the Torvosaurus was huge, more like a Tyrannosaurus rex head.  (Remember that T. rex lived millions of years later, in the Cretaceous Period.)  So T. rex never fought with a Torvosaursus or an Allosaurus.

For years the overall length of Torvosaurus was thought to be 33 feet ( 10 m) ...that changed recently with the find of a new skeleton of Torvosaur in Colorado, near the Utah border...in fact near Dinosaur National Monument.  This new find is estimated to be 40+ (12 m+) feet long.   It clearly was the top predator of the Late Jurassic.  A very large Torvosaurus was found in Wyaoming as well...found by Robert Bakker the famous paleontologist.

Torvosaurus had short but powerful arms.  They were NOT tiny like T. rex arms.  These arms were functional with very large claws for grasping and/or killing prey.  The upper arm bone or humerus was much shorter than the forearm bones or radius and ulna bones.

Torvosaurus vs Allosaurus

It is clear that in a confrontation or fight that if the Allosaurus did not back down then the Torvosaurus would have lunch.  Lunch being the Allosaurus.  Of course, there is significant evidence that Theropods hunted in packs.  If a sole Torvosaurus went up against a pack of Allosaurus then that might have a different outcome...and the Allosaurus pack would have lunch.

A large skeleton of Torvosaurs can been seen in the entryway of the Museum of Ancient Life located in Lehi, Utah...at Thanksgiving Point.  I drew the dinosaur by examining this skeleton.  This skeleton is actually a model.  The original skeleton is located at the  BYU Paleontology Museum.   In fact, when they were setting up the museum at Thanksgiving Point the American Paleontological Associates asked BYU if they could have their unprepared skeleton of Torvosaurs with the stipoulation that they American Paleontological Associates, would prepare the fossilized skeleton IF they could make a copy for the Museum of Ancient Life.  (Many prepared exhibits are of replica bones of dinosurs.  This leaves the real bones available for study.)  By the way, the first Torvosaurus was discovered by Dinosaur Jim Jensen, of BYU.

There are two species of Torvosaurus.  The first part of the scientific name is the Genus.  Both are Genus Torvosaurus.  The species are tannerii and gurneyii.   So, like we say T. rex or Tyrannosaurus rex... we also say Torvosaurus tanneri .... and .... Torvosaurus gurneyi.

Rhamphorhynchus, pictured in the drawing, was a Jurassic Pterosaur.  It had a long tail as many Pterosaurs had during the Jurassic Era.  (Cretaceous Pterosaurs lost the long tails.)  It also had needle-like teeth for catching fish and other marine life.   Cephalopod remains and fish skeletal remains have been found in Rhamphorhynchus rib cages...where the stomach would have been.  So we KNOW what it ate.  Just so you know, Pterosaurs were NOT flying dinosaurs.  They were flying reptiles.  They are commonly called Pterodactyls.

Battle of Midway 75th Anniversary

Yes I know it is Sunday, and I already did a post of Jesus Calming the Sea.  But today is also the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.  There were many brave men who gave their lives for their country that day... on June 4, 1942.

TBD Devastator Torpedo Bomber

The first planes to arrive over the Japanese attack fleet were TBD Devastator Torpedo Bombers.  This plane was designed in 1934 and manufacture began in 1937  . . . and at that time it was state of the art. However, when World War II arrived the plane was obsolete.  It was going up against the far more maneuverable and faster Japanese Zero Fighter.

As I wrote in a previous post...all 8 planes of the first attacking squadron of American planes were shot down and only one pilot survived.  (Ensign George Gay)  The other flights of TBD Devastator Torpedo Bombers also attacked and not a single torpedo hit a Japanese ship.  The American gunners in the back of each bomber also did not bring down a single Japanese Zero Fighter.  In all 41 American torpedo planes attacked the enemy and only 6 returned safely to their aircraft carrier.  The Devastator Torpedo Bombers were not sacrificed for nothing though...because the entire cover force of Japanese Zero Fighters had dived down to shoot up the flights of attacking American planes.  Because of this when the Dauntless Dive Bombers arrived next, there were no Japanese Fighter aircraft to defend their ships.  Eventually all 4 Japanese aircraft carriers were destroyed by the dive bombers.

Douglas SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber

In today's Deseret News there is a report about the commander of one of those squadrons of dive bombers.   Lt. Commander C. Wade McClusky led his squadron into  attack and destroy one or more of the Japanese aircraft carriers.  C. Wade McClusky survived the war and went on to become an admiral.  His hometown of Buffalo, New York unveiled a statue of him today.  Another commander of a squadron of torpedo planes, Max Leslie, lost his bomb due to faulty electric arming switches.  He still led his squadron in their dive to bomb the Japanese carriers.  Each Japanese aircraft carrier took 3-4 bombs.  This was enough to destroy them because they were getting ready to launch another attack and their flight decks were full of fully loaded and armed planes with high octane airplane fuel in the wings.  Even one hit probably would have destroyed the Japanese carriers!

Grumman F4F Wildcat Fighter Plane with Japanese Zero in Background

The main American Fighter that was used in the battle was the F4F Wildcat.  A Commander Thatch developed a weave technique of flying that helped the Wildcats to outfight the faster Japanese Zero.  In fact, for every F4F Wildcat shot down there were around 6 Zeros shot down.  That technique is called the Thatch Weave.  The Thatch weave was first used in combat at the Battle of Midway.  Commander Thatch's flight of 4 F4Fs came under attack and he had his pilots and himself excecute the weave and the enemy Zeros were shot down instead of the American planes.  Because the F4F was so well armed and armored, plus with good tactics like the Thatch Weave, in the early days of the war the kill ratio was 6:1.  That is, 6 Japanese Zeros shot down to every 1 F4F Fighter.

I highly recommend a movie from 1976 called Midway.  It tells the story of the battle and also tells the story of how, because of fear, the US imprisoned American citizens of Japanese descent.  The movie also treats the Japanese sailors and flyers with respect.  A famous Japanese actor played a major role as Admiral Yamamoto, the leader of the Japanese Navy at the time of the battle.

We need to remember the sacrifices of those who have died to keep our freedom.  IF Japan had won the Battle of Midway it is thought that the Hawaiian Islands would have fallen next and then the West Coast of the US would have been invaded.  The outcome of this battle meant that the USA would have time to mobilize its industrial might and eventually win the war.  Japan was never able to mobilize another major offensive campaign during the rest of the war.

Jesus Calms the Stormy Sea

Jesus Calms the Storm

I went to a baptism of a grandnephew yesterday.  He chose the song: Master The Tempest is Raging for the closing song.  I drew this for him.  I love the story of how Jesus had taught the people by the shore of the Sea of Galilee and then as his disciples sailed him out away from the shore a great storm hit.  Jesus was at peace so he was taking a nap in the bow of the ship.  His disciples woke him and said, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?"  In other words, "We're all gonna die!"  Jesus calmly stood up and commanded the sea to be calm.  He said, "Peace be still."  ...and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.