Javier Román-Nieves is a puertorrican artist that loves nature. Among many other things (he’s also a writer and a citizen scientist) Román takes pictures of puertorrican fauna, especially birds. Last April, we had the opportunity to see just a few of his pictures. They put into perspective that we are living in an island; birds from as far away as Alaska stop here to mate. His work speaks volumes of what has been known for a century and a half: species evolve; and islands are perfect places to show this.
Students from 10th and 12th grade saw some of his pictures. They also participated in a conversation with the artist (he spent time with them totally free of charge).
For more information on Javier’s work, you can click here.
This one is from Utuado. You can see one arm of our galaxy very clearly.
Students from 10 & 12 experienced Javier’s candid personality, while learning a lot about natural wonders hidden in plain sight, especially in cities.
Careful observations of the legs of this bird show that birds and dinosaurs share common ancestry.
Javier’s work can be accessed through social media. His instagram account is @starsbirdsandcities.
He’s also involved in the publication of his book, Sounds of Watching. The following video tells the story of how the project has been in development for the last two years:
The Hypertextual Lounge 
This definitely took me by surprise. I had no idea that we had 113 different species in San Juan. Like that’s just San Juan. I can’t imagine in the entire world! There are so many things that we don’t know about the world. So many things to discover. This means to me that what we know is only a grain of sand in a huge beach. I think that through birds we can learn a lot about geography and the history of the world since we can see natural selection through them.
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Reference: http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/birdwatching-in-pr/
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Reference to my comment: http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/birdwatching-in-pr/
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It comes to me as no surprise that San Juan houses over 100 birds, considering the vast array of avian animals in the world. There are, in total, over 9,000 bird species in the planet, and their population amounts outnumbers ours several times over. That’s not just a reference to Dragon Ball Z, a page on FactMonster (http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0934288.html ) states there are about 9,900 bird species, that’s a lot! On the topic of bird’s relation to dinosaurs, it is hard to imagine for some, but the hint lies in those feet, as mentioned in this post. This helps us identify possible bird relatives, just by finding dinosaurs with a similar theropod gait. Off the top of my head, I imagine the Archaeopteryx, often regarded as the bird-dinosaur missing link. Other theropods come to mind as well, like the well-known Raptors. Referring to the species under the family of Dromaeosauridae, such as Deinonychus, Velociraptor, and Utahraptor.
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