I have noted a change in some of the visitors to our feeders this winter: one of our most common year-round birds, House Finches, have almost completely disappeared. Another common winter visitor, White-crowned Sparrows, have also gone missing. Their places appear to have been taken by large numbers of American Tree Sparrows, who rarely showed …
Author: Reid Farmer
Dr. Stephen Maturin on Falcons and Wives
During the hymns and psalms, which a certain rivalry between Surprises and Dromedaries rendered more vehement than musical, his attention wandered, returning to his anonymous letter and his thoughts of Diana – of her particular sort of faithfulness – of her extremely spirited resentment of any slight – and it occurred to him that she …
Hot Links
Look at this collection of gorgeous pictures of a spiny trilobite. I’d never seen one of these before. According to this study, our preagricultural ancestors had healthier mouths and teeth than we do. Is this a surprise? It is apparent to me that every few months, there is another press release citing a new radiocarbon …
A Literary Conversation
Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner suffered from a situation that affects many authors: his novels and stories got good reviews but he was not rewarded with good sales. Throughout most of his career, he was plagued by financial insecurity. To be completely fair, this insecurity didn’t keep Faulkner from owning an ante-bellum mansion, his own …
Napoleon Chagnon is Still Standing
I was surprised by this fairly objective article in the NY Times on the remarkable life and controversial career of cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon. This story is an example in microcosm of the descent of cultural anthropology over the last thirty years into mindless political correctness. Chagnon was famous for his 1960s field work with …
Dawn at Harbin, 1928
A ragged dawn, yellowish gray, was loping in from Siberia, like a frightened pariah dog, when we finally left the Fantasie. The town recoiled from the lightening streets, huddled miserably in the bitter cold, under a ragged smoke scroll, crouching almost at the top of the lived-in world. A forgotten town, miserable in its licensed …
Ice Age Art
I enjoyed this review in the Financial Times of an exhibit at the British Museum and thought you might, too. I really liked this picture of a 20,000 year-old mamoth ivory carving of a wisent, or European bison (Bison bonasus). As I have mentioned here many times, it’s amazing that the very earliest Paleolithic cave art …
Got Geese?
We are absolutely overrun with Canada geese this winter. I can’t remember a year since we moved here in 2007 that we’ve had this many. Lately we have been in their flight-path as they spend the day feeding in grain fields and pastures to the east of us and then return to reservoirs and creeks …
Dog Talk
Our dogs talk a lot. That comes with the territory when you live with Australian shepherds, and every one we have had has talked to one degree or another. It’s always been something I enjoy about them. Sadie, our seven year-old female, has used a single, multi-purpose vocalization since she was a very young dog. …
Cincinnati
We’ve just returned from a week in Cincinnati where we spent Thanksgiving with two of Connie’s siblings and their families. Our kids flew out from California for the holiday, too. We had a good visit and got to do some interesting things that I’ll post about. I took this picture of the Cincinnati skyline and …