Art Culture Politics
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Behold the Imago!
A flesh fly of the genus Sarcophagi. You don’t particularly want to see the larval (stage, part, being) of this insect, since as their name suggests they are carrion-eating maggots. On the other hand, you probably don’t want to see carrion slowly decomposing by bacteria and the weather alone; that would take much too long:…
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Let’s Hear It For Humility
“Area Closed/Protected Natural Area.” Just being a fan of the natural world’s beauties doesn’t mean you’re a friend of nature. Some people think their photography or their bird lists are more important than anything else. But no, they aren’t, not by a long shot. Primary is the care, caution, and respect we pay to the…
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Birds and Flowers
From 1982, a set of stamps illustrating each state’s bird and flower. A gift from a friend whose father was a stamp collector. (Click on image to get larger version.) Montana’s, in case you were wondering during the special election: Western Meadowlark and bitterroot. In the election to fill the seat vacated by the new…
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Vigilance Against Poachers
Yesterday, some bird poachers were interrupted in Prospect Park by Park Rangers and park staff. Earlier, one of the poachers actually walked through a group of birders with a caged American Goldfinch in one hand and a glue stick (used to trap birds, a variation on bird lime; very nasty stuff) in the other. It’s…
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Audubon and Murals
[By popular demand, here’s the short talk I gave in celebration of John James Audubon’s birthday to the Riverside Oval Association and friends last week. A good time was had by all, I think, and the cake was delicious. Photos are from the same day: I walked around looking at some the Audubon Murals in…
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Swallows and Swifts
Dr. Johnson, in his 59th year, 1768 (per wee Jaimie Boswell): “He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy. ‘That woodcocks, (said he,) fly over the northern countries, is proved, because they have been observed at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, then…
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Audubon III
Welcome back to several ways of looking at John James Audubon. Lucy Bakewell was born in Burton-upon-Trent, Straffordshire, England, on January 18, 1787. Seventeen years later, by then translated to Pennsylvania with her family, she met her neighbor John James Audubon. They were married for 43 years beginning in 1808. Then she survived him by…
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Audubon II
There is darn little art without political economy. Welcome back to another way of looking at John James Audubon. In his book, Audubon’s Elephant, detailing the difficulties of getting the double elephant edition of Birds of America published in Britain, Duff Hart-Davis says Audubon’s portfolio weighed a hundred pounds. Hart-Davis doesn’t inform us that when Audubon referred to…
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Happy Birthday, John J.
It’s Audubon’s 232nd today. Backyard and Beyond will be noting this in several ways over the next couple of days. Some of you may be surprised to learn that John James Audubon retired to Manhattan. In 1841, upper New York County was still pretty wild, as the city more or less ended at 14th Street. Wishing…
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Avenue U
On the Q Line. Jason Middlebrook, “Brooklyn Seeds,” 2011. Did you catch the results of Kansas’s special election on Tuesday? In a heavily Republican district, the Democratic candidate did quite well. Not enough to win, but damn close. In dozens of GOP-held Congressional districts, a similar swing would simply drown the rats. And this guy…
Backyard and Beyond 