birding

01
Jul
California quail digital art with a Joukowski transform illustration and air currents moving around the top knot of the quail

Valley Quail’s Airfoil

I had the delightful experience of seeing a beautiful quail family in Santa Cruz while traveling for work. The daddy quail sat atop a bush while mommy and chicks foraged below. Finding the right curve for the top knot was a challenge – Mathstodon suggestions led me down a few paths and ended at a […
1 min read
04
May
Indigo bunting on grass with star trail arcs and celestial sphere diagram in the corner.

Indigo Bunting

Indigo buntings are majestically beautiful birds. I had a hard time deciding the direction to go in doodling this one, so I dug up a lot of fun facts: A group of indigo buntings is called a sacrifice, mural, or decoration. Their indigo color comes from the structure within their feathers rather than
1 min read
20
Apr
9 oystercatchers in a mandala packing pearls around an earth reflection in a larger pearl.

Microcosm Oystercatchers

Here is another bird in the series – Microcosm Oystercatchers. These are one of my favorite birds. I often see them in the black basalt cobbles on the coast with their fluorescent beaks. I had a hard time with where I wanted to go with this piece initially and went back to gaskets (something I […]
1 min read
16
Apr
Loon on water with lunes and area calculation

Pacific Lune

Another bird in the series! This one is a little luney. The lunes of Alhazen have the same area as the triangle. Note: Image was updated from the original post to fix an error
1 min read
10
Mar
owl flying with vorticies

Great Horned Owl

All of the great horned owls that have sat with me for hours of my life came to mind. I really struggled with what math piece I wanted to do here. I went with lift. I used multiple images, including my own in composing this. The vortices off the back of the owl are inspired […]
1 min read
01
Jan
10,000 footprints on a dune in yellow white and blue - art

10,000 Steps of a Sandhill Crane

This is my first year participating in Genuary. There are code prompts for each day of the month of January. I don’t know if I will be able to post every day, but hope to learn from each of the prompts and will share pieces as I complete them. This first piece plays with the […]
1 min read
06
Dec
Borb Generator

Borb Generator

Sometimes you just need a borb. They make good digital stickers, profile pics and more. I created the Borb Generator to make random borbs using pointillism in p5js. There are over 900,000 points in each Borb. Here is a link on OpenProcessing to the Borb Generator to make your own. Refresh to code to
2 min read
25
Nov
a white pelican on a blue body of water at sunset with flocks of cantor dust and the cantor set elements throughout

American Peli-cantor

These birds utterly amaze me with their gigantic wings, synchronous motion, and high-up flight. They really are a joy to watch in flight, feeding, and landings.
1 min read
15
Nov
Evening Grosbeak navigating a prime constellation.

Evening Grosbeak

When contemplating a spirally constellation of twin primes, you may ask, “Just how many are there? – Infinite?” The Twin Prime Conjecture would say so.
11
Nov
a bird with 144 beaks in a thought cloud of a kitty with the words "kitty contemplates a new species."

Gross-Beak

I got side tracked when thinking about the next math bird in a series and thought “I’m long overdue for a kitty comic.” Dozen=12 and Gross=144

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Sophia

Mathematics educator and creative coder exploring the beauty of mathematical concepts through interactive visualizations and playful learning.

Mathematics

Education

Creative Coding