Art Culture Politics
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A.C. Bent & Co. on Raptors
Arthur Cleveland Bent published twenty-one volumes in his Life Histories of North American Birds between 1919 and 1968. The last two volumes were posthumous. They originally came out in the U.S. National Museum Bulletin. Later they were republished by Dover. There’s an internet edition now. The Dover paperbacks are a standard sight in used book store natural…
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The Fate of Us?
Environmentalist eschatology has it that the world is ending. Nature? I think not. The human world as we’ve known it, undoubtedly — that has been the pattern for as long as there have been humans; it’s just a question of timing. But the planet will abide. Much simplified and profoundly poisoned by humans, true, but…
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Skinks
Three species of Plestiodon skinks are found in southeastern Virginia.Juveniles of the Common Five-lined (P. fasciatus) and Southeastern Five-Lined (P. inexpectatus) have these amazing blue tails.Adults are harder to ID if they’re not in the hand. I originally thought this one might be a Broad-headed (P. laticeps) because of the red in the head, but…
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Land of Vultures
The vultures thicken as you drive south along the New Jersey Turnpike. The Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) soar and swirl, rocking their wings. Delaware and Maryland add more Black Vultures (Coragyps atratus) to the aerial ballet. These birds are notable for their shorter tails, silver/white-tipped wings, and a lot more flapping. Road kill seems to…
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Maps
Hornaday and Gannett’s Map Illustrating the Extermination of the American Bison, 1889. (A digital version here.) They were on the eastern side of the Appalachian chain in the colonial period.One of the sheets of Harold Fisk’s Ancient Courses [of the] Mississippi Meander Belt, 1944. (More detail here.) 6000 years of sinuous riverine movement. That beast’ll…
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City Nature Challenges
The City Nature Challenge starts tomorrow. Are you in? Here’s a good description of it: “Cities around the world will be competing to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people.” The event measures how many people enter observations, and how many observations individuals make,…
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Wright On Sparrows
The big book of little brown jobs is here at last. The enviably erudite Rick Wright has written a very readable reference guide to the LBJs, sparrow division. It’s not a field guide: the hardcover large format precludes that. (I presume a paperback will follow; there’s also an ebook version, but you know those are…
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Plane, Crows
You know I spend a lot of time in Green-Wood Cemetery, which is virtually right next door. But what you may not know is that the cemetery archives are a fascinating trove of material about those interred there. Recently, I had the privilege of looking over some of the material with archivist Helena St. James-Rotwang.…
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More Whitman
“Nature marches in procession, in sections, like the corps of an army. All have done much for me, and still do. But for the last two days it has been the great wild bee, the humble-bee, or “bumble,” as the children call him. As I walk, or hobble*, from the farm-house down to the creek,…
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Concrete
If there’s a “they” in the distant geological future, they’re sure going to wonder about the layer of concrete surrounding the world. Maybe they’ll think we worshipped it. They’d be right, wouldn’t they? Check out this hypothesis on the locking-in of atmospheric carbon in equatorial mountain building/limestone production, which these authors suggest led to the…
Backyard and Beyond 