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Consider, if you will, the lobster
Andrew Selkirk, the inspiration for DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe, ate a lot of crawfish and spiny lobsters while marooned in the Juan Fernandez Islands. When he returned to Scotland, he took up lobstering. This is the kind of thing you learn in Richard J. King’s Lobster. This book is one of the Animal Series from Reaktion…
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Revenants
The Cumaean Sibyl spoke in oak leaves, which, when scattered by the wind, tended to result in the most ambiguous prophesies. In John Dryden’s bouncing-ball translation (Aeneid 6, 126-129), she says to Aeneas: The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view…
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Recent Birds
Palm Warblers are most commonly on the ground, but this one has snagged something insect-y on a tree limb. Kinglets to the right of me, kinglets to the left. The Ruby-crowned rarely shows his flaring ruby crown, but I guess he was put out by the other RCKs here. No “confusing fall warbler” garb for…
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Spiders!
I don’t think they’re scary, but my goodness, this one sure was big. Common House? One of the long-jawed orbweavers? Couldn’t see this with the naked eye, but in the camera, wow! Basilica Orbweaver. Characteristically makes vertical hangings of its egg cases. There were a bunch of these Basilicas in these bushes. What a revelation!…
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Raptor Wednesday
Keep watching the skies! Two Sundays ago was overcast and ready for rain. A distant passing bird, which I thought would be a gull, turned out to be a Bald Eagle heading SSW. This was, mind you, after spotting: A Cooper’s Hawk. A Merlin. And a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This one was in the Merlin Bowl…
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Oaken Sights
Yesterday’s log was at the base of a big old oak. The near-horizontal limbs were host to mosses and algae, which in turn host tiny invertebrates. This hole, too, looks like it has potential. Higher up, still another hole has become an airborne garden. Nearby, amidst the roots, a woodchuck den.
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In the Queen’s Chamber
Let this be a lesson to me. I turned over a rotten old log that was about two feet long and a quarter of that in diameter. It came apart in three pieces. This stirred up this Bald-Faced Hornet, all covered in saw dust. Must be a queen in her over-wintering chamber. A thousand pardons,…
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In Beringia
“We polar whales are a quiet inoffensive race, desirous of life and peace… I write on behalf of my butchered and dying species. I appeal to the friends of the whole race of whales. Must we be murdered in cold blood? Must our race become extinct?” An editorial in The Friend, October 15, 1850. This…
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Backyard and Beyond 