I’m halfway cheating with this picture of a Gambel’s quail. I took it at a feeder in the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge in California. It reminded me of this quail petroglyph from El Morro National Monument in New Mexico.
Author: Reid Farmer
Friday Feeder Friend
A spotted towhee.
Florissant Fossil Beds
Last weekend, Connie and I took a daytrip drive in the mountains and one of our stops was Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The deposit here was created by a volcanic eruption during the Eocene. The most spectacularly evident remains are these petrified redwood stumps such as the one above. And this one. And this …
Stay Away from this Stuff
Health officials are warning New Yorkers to stay away from an illegal aphrodisiac made from toad venom after the product apparently killed a man. Somehow I think there’ll be a Darwin Award nomination coming out of this.
Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil
Did you see this from the BBC? “One of South America’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru. The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land. The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe …
“Real Archaeologists Don’t Wear Fedoras”
I just had to comment on this rather dyspeptic op-ed by archaeologist Neil Asher Silberman in the Washington Post earlier this week. Silberman whines that the popular Indiana Jones movies give the world a false view of what archaeologists really do and that he has “a problem with the entertainment tail wagging the archaeological dog.” …
Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again
The NY Times tells us that the demand for guano (bird droppings) is rising due to the petroleum-related cost rise for synthetic fertilizer and guano’s increased use as a fertilizer for organic foods. The article gives a very interesting narrative of the effect of guano mining on Peruvian history and the natural environment of the …
Grackle
Thought I would close out my Friday with this pic of a cocky great-tailed grackle hanging out on our deck.
Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain
So says this article from the Science section of the NY Times. From my perspective in my mid-50s, I find this absolutely believable.
The Condor
I thought I would post this image of the cover of the February issue, just in case you had any questions about how the editorial staff feels about wind turbines.