… did Dr. John Burchard keep? He writes: “The ‘exotics’ I myself have kept at one time or another include a wolf, coatis, corvids large and small, raptors from sparrowhawk and merlin up to and including Gyrfalcon, Goshawk and Golden Eagle (the latter quite capable of killing someone, especially a child), boa constrictors up to …
Month: August 2012
Rocky Mountain Airshow
Last Saturday Connie and I drove up to Broomfield to see the Rocky Mountain Airshow at the Rocky Mountain Regional Airport. It was our first time to attend one of these. There were a fair number of aircraft on static display including this mobbed A-26. The orange markings on this C-130 show that it is …
This week in the neighborhood
It’s been a great week for wildlife encounters. I was driving down the highway and watched a group of swallows wheeling and flying quickly, with a Swainson’s hawk in their midst. The group flew near the New Fork River bridge and I actually saw the hawk grab a swallow! The hawk flew with the small …
Quote
“In Britain, an editor will permit a writer to make an allusion if he, the editor, understands it. In America, an editor might well understand it but he will want it taken out, for fear the readers won’t”.– Clive James in the Atlantic ???
A face for Lane…
It is dated– from the 90’s– and he informs me he rarely wears a hat. But this is the best photo I have of Lane Batot and one of his many dogs, on a drizzly day atop one of his backyard mountains…
Even Odder Riding Rhyme
I posted on my childhood “trotting rhyme” from the Piedmont earlier, but Peculiar found a modern one that is… well, merely descriptive words fail. It is about riding on a Tardigrade, the enigmatic microscopic beastie also known as a “water bear”. I want a bonny tardigrade to serve me for a steed. I’d harness him …
Bouriy and Yantar
In a comment to Mark in the post on Lauren below, Constant Commenter and dog- in- law Lane Batot of North Carolina explains that he does not have a computer, but that “Mister Bodio recently got a whole bunch of photos of the pups from me that he perhaps can scan(?) and post(?)” Asked and …
A little More from John Burchard
One of the wisest naturalists I know, Dr John Burchard, on the subjects below and more: I firmly support the right to keep “exotics” in captivity and/or partial or complete liberty (our wolf lived free in the desert on weekends, and our coatis mostly lived free in our very normal residential neighborhood, for example). Much …
“In our time…”
“… which is a rather stupid time..” (Jose Ortega y Gasset): the latest on the California bill to ban hunting with hounds; and the possible loss of the historical and economically important Remington factory in Ilion New York. On the hound bill, the concern of the antis is touching. “”It’s typically a high-tech hunt that …
Eastern Hounds
Another variation on the endless theme of our landrace, dogs that the conventional might immediately insist is another “breed”. Our Asia, mostly sighthound group knows better, and collectively provided some background. They were found by Mia who said, “These photos are taken in India… The photographer says they call them “Afghan fighter hounds”, because that’s …