Math Birds - Fractal Kitty

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Math Birds

A collection of 27 posts

Rows of snowy owls paired on repeating logs with mountains in the background with a Koch snowflake.

A blizzard

A collective noun for snowy owls is a blizzard. I doodled Koch snowflakes with a blizzard of these superb owls. They hunt day and night and are an utter delight to observe.

raven holding a green apple at a window

Raven Paradox

Raven’s were a fun one to research. I had a hard time selecting the math for these intriguing birds. From vocalizations to intelligence to barrel rolls – it was a tough pick. I ended up going with the Raven Paradox. I couldn’t resist including a leucistic feather (not all ravens are black).

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 […

one large puffin amongs many small with the costal range in the background and a title and equations of probabilities

An Improbability of Crested Puffins

A collective noun for puffins is an improbability! I live in Oregon with these beautiful Tufted Puffins (also known as crested). It’s pretty probable that improbable things will happen – just look at the perfection of these little birds.

a figure 8 immersion klein bottle tree with nuthatches on it

White-Breasted Nuthatch

These birds are often called “upside-down birds,” but maybe they just have no regard for orientation. I enjoyed playing with Boy’s surfaces, Möbius strips, cross-caps, and various Klein bottles for this piece (thanks math Twitter for responding to non-orientable surface requests). I decided on a fig

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

Penguin floating in a dodecahedron in space

World Penguin Day

I found out that it is World Penguin Day, so I did a quick sketch – enjoy! If you are a maker and want to make a penguin game – try Hex-a-Huddle

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 […]

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

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 […]

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.

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.

chickadee with a slope field and the derivate dy/dx = 2co(x/3) with the rollercoaster flight sketched

Chestnut-backed Chicka-dy/dx

Another Math bird in the series! These little chickadees make the cutest noise. They have had a brood every year in the neighbors gum tree. When I see their rollercoaster flight, I think of slope fields.

pair of sand pipers on parallelepipeds with an ocean in the background and the matrix fro the volume.

Western Sand Parallelepiper

Another Math bird in the series! This one was inspired by my 17yr old discussing her math homework of deriving the volume for a parallelepiped. So of course It spawned the thought of parallelepiped sand castles.

Spiraling Vaux’s Swifts

Spiraling Vaux’s Swifts

Just like solar eclipses, Vaux’s swifts really are a life experience. Watching them funnel into a chimney in a vortex of flitting feathers is just amazing. I had the wonderful experience of watching them funnel into the chimney at dusk in Salem, Oregon (my home). So here is the next math bird in the

a birdhouse with violet green swallow head packed like a gasket and the math written on the house with parents flying

Packing Violet Green Swallows

I enjoyed watching the swallows this summer. I couldn’t help but imagine that they were packing circles in their little birdhouse portal. Life is full of such precious moments.

a western tanager on oranges peeling them to make map projections in the background with drawing tools

Western Tanager

Another math bird in the series. I associate these tanagers with oranges, summer, and warmth. This year I enjoyed seeing them in our woods as I sat on a fallen white oak in the middle of a forest.

Cardinality Cardinal

Cardinality Cardinal

Another math bird in the series. This one I struggled with what to do and include, feel free to send any comments my way. I am still contemplating if it is really done. I miss hearing cardinal calls from when I lived in the east and watching them out on my grandpa’s farm with their […]

Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

The Belted Kingfisher catches Fish Curves on a King Graph. (This image was updated with a fix after the initial post) Sources: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/KingGraph.html [https://mathworld.wolfram.com/KingGraph.html], https://mathworld.wolfram.com/FishCurve.html [https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Fish

A spotted towhee sits on a wooden tau with vines growing on it and a few branches and a son that looks like the unit circle w

Spotted Tau-hee

Happy Tau Day! I have created another math bird piece for today with the inspiration of Spotted Towhees on my morning walk.

Space-Pigeonholes Imagined

Space-Pigeonholes Imagined

The Pigeonhole Principle merged with the contemplation of black holes today. I envisioned Fractal Kitty at the whiteboard with this one, but went without the kitty today – enjoy.

“Two-Body” Problem: Barycenter vs Waxwing

“Two-Body” Problem: Barycenter vs Waxwing

After watching the neighborhood waxwings consume their fill of berries prior to moving on, I pondered a different kind of a two-body problem:

i-bis

i-bis (white faced ibis) on the complex plane.

A blue heron at night with the moon large and behind. The heron is facing left and not extended and only shoulder up visible.

Heron’s Formula

Maybe we should start naming all math formulas and theorems after birds. This one wouldn’t have to change under this new renaming… I do love being able to find an area of a triangle given the lengths of its sides. Heron’s formula information: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeronsFormula.html [https:/

Probability in the Leaves

Probability in the Leaves

I run and see the crows daily. They splash, play, talk, and announce the sunset. I see them in yards flipping leaves together and can’t help but feel that they are calculating probabilities. Of what, I am not sure – maybe the probability of finding a nut, bug, or piece of pizza. No matter what, […]

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Sophia

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

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