Category: Environment

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Critters

A simple bird

3 Quarks Daily points to a wonderful NY Times magazine article on birding, stories, and the now legendary ivory-billed woodpecker.

But this is not one of those crummy stories that ends with some annoying riff about “ambiguity.” Birding is not philosophy. Birding is storytelling, and ivory-bill birding is the most exquisitely nuanced yarn of them all. It requires that you consider the different facets of the ivory-billed woodpecker from every angle. (My experience with Bill Tippit and this philosophical mumbo jumbo are but two.) There are, with some editing, 13 ways of looking at the ivory-billed woodpecker, and there is an answer to the burning question Did I see the damn bird or not? Here’s the thing — I’m not able to give the answer. It’s a birding story. Only you can.

It’s a wonderful story, and not just because of it’s focus on birding. Its about the power of faith and wanting to believe, and how this can influence even the most dedicated observationist and critical thinker.

Wonderful. I must plan a trip to Arkansas. Soon.

Sweet-and-Sour Bovine Penis Braised, With Testicular Partners…

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Critters

Squid attacks

Thanks to Scott Reynen for the link to a second squid focused weblog–this one by Laughing Squid. The site has two items that especially caught my eye (figuratively) this week:

War of the Worlds with a real squid.

Filming the Red Devil — a National Geographic film clip showing large Humboldt squid attacking the man who is attempting to film them. It’s an incredible film — well worth multiple viewings.

Categories
Critters People

The Rule of Small Deer

There were three deer on the path in front of me.

They didn’t run when they saw me. They just stood there staring at me. Finally, as one, they moved: one pawed the ground, one began eating the leaves from a small bush, the third started walking towards me.

Deer are supposed to run from people, not approach us. I walked closer to the deer coming towards me and it didn’t stop.  I stamped my foot and it didn’t stop. I raised my arms and waved and it didn’t pause, didn’t blink, didn’t stop. I turned around to go back and only then did it head back to the other two.

I turned around, back towards the deer. The little bold one swung around back to me, as if it were on a string pulled by my movements. I began to walk towards it, thinking this time it would shy away. It didn’t. I moved closer until I could see the ragged edges of its fur and the tiny black at the center of its eyes. Still, it came.

I didn’t know what to make of the deer, but I could imagine.

I imagined it had run from humans one too many times. Run from the food and the best footing and the last of the sunshine. Run back into the trees and the shadows and the low branches waiting to trip it and the bushes already picked clean.

Probably decided to hell with it. Yes, that’s it. To hell with it. You push anything hard enough, even a small deer, and they’ll think to hell with it.

Categories
Critters

White tailed deer

It’s been in the 80’s almost 90 this week. It seems like every day we’re breaking temperature records. Last night I had to open all of my windows, which means that I woken at the crack of dawn by all the birds. I didn’t mind over much. Now, I’m sitting at my desk in front of the window looking out at a lovely, sunny day and couple of bunnies chasing each other around the parking lot.

Last night I took my camera to Powder to try to photograph the pileated woodpecker. No such luck, but I did get some photos of new leaves and dogwoods and deer. The deer were especially intriguing. Normally when you walk toward them, either they’ll ignore you, or run away. These three young deer, though, not only didn’t run away, but one kept walking toward me.

I didn’t know what to make of it — the deer are not encouraged to approach people at Powder, which is a natural conservancy, not a petting park. Yet the young buck last night would have come up to me, I think, if I had let it. I wouldn’t, I don’t encourage human contact with wild animals. I backed away, which is the first time for me to be the one to move away from a human-deer encounter. I imagine the deer thinks of itself as studly now–chasing away the monster.

Categories
Critters Photography

For the birds

The cloudy weather broke for a few hours yesterday morning, but it was still cold. I took my telephoto to the park to take photos of birds. Not flowers, or derelict buildings, cute children, or dogs in costume — birds.

There’s a pileated woodpecker that frequents one of the parks. I’ve heard him and others have seen him, but in four years, all I’ve heard is his loud tap, and all I’ve seen is the very last of his feathers as he flies away. To odd further to the injury, he would usually laugh as he flew.

“Ah Ha HA”, he would go, just like Woody the Woodpecker. “Ha ha HA!”

However, Woody the illusory woodpecker aside, there are other pretty, flashy birds about. Now is the time to take cardinal photos as the males find a branch on high somewhere and sing out their courting song. At the park, I followed the song from tree to bush, to tree, but the only bird I managed to take a photo of was this robin.

Finally I came upon one bright red male, strutting his stuff high in the air. I quickly took as many photos as I could before he flew off.

As I started to turn away, a bit of bright red directly to the side caught my eye. Not only was there a cardinal close by, it didn’t seem to be frightened of me, and actually eyed me as it preened and fussed with its feathers in the morning breeze. The day was my day for bird, after all.