So- called Carrier, ie messenger pigeons (sophisticated bird folks know they are Racing Homers, not the heavily wattled show bird of that name) have been in the news a lot lately. Reid sent this article about a lost WW II messenger from the legendary Code and cryptography center Bletchley Park discovered in an English chimney; …
Author: Steve Bodio
Excuses for Missing Work
I THINK I got this from the WSJ last week but all I have is a clipping… Dog was having a nervous breakdown My dead grandmother was being exhumed. Toe was stuck in toilet Upset by watching Hunger Games Sick from reading too much Hair turned orange while trying to dye it another color My …
Friend’s Adventures, Urban and Rural
Patrick Porter’s survival kit for Sandy, in Natick, MA: Cole Brooks, Malcolm’s* son, takes his first elk in Montana: “… kid drew a lottery cow elk tag for this week. Second day out at 3 in the afternoon we hiked up the side of a ridge where we’d spotted cows the evening before. I walked …
Links: Good and Bad News for Falcons
The tundra subspecies and other high- latitude migrating Peregrines are in very good shape. Peregrines are one of those capital- C “Charismatic” species who always get press (whether the label “endangered”, once attached in the popular collective mind, will ever be removed is matter for a long essay). Meanwhile, the obscure and beautiful little Amur …
Gun Books for Boys, Parents, and Girls…
Silvio Calabi and his team released the amazing Gun Book for Boys a couple of weeks ago. I opened it with interest; Silvio has been a fine editor and writer (last year’s Hemingway’s Guns, reviewed here, is a favorite) and good correspondent for years, and he was the somewhat unlikely advisor who recommended I take …
Art, Science, Insect Hunting, and Nabokov
John Wilson’s butterfly photos remind me of one of the great neglected stories of 20th century intellectual life; that Vladimir Nabokov was not just a writer and teacher but a great taxonomist, this despite being denigrated as a dilettante in his time. Joseph Conrad is legitimately revered for becoming a great English novelist in his …
Upland season
Reader and friend Kirk Hogan from Wisconsin evokes the essence of a northern upland season in a few terse sentences… 14 – hours hunted in 2 days (losing light) 8 – small Brittanies, 3 probably from Herve’s original lines 43 – flushes per 5 minute rule (5 minutes between flushes, so probably not re-flushes of …
First (belated) Snow
Weeks overdue but welcome. Blogging resumes… South Baldy 4 miles south, our highest (nearly 11,000 foot) peak, by John Wilson
Two old (or old- fashioned) naturalists, and new photo series
Two old farts in the bar courtyard. John Wilson is an old style bug catching (or photographing) “stamp collector” naturalist like me, an Ohioan who retired from an Audubon sanctuary there to a remote homestead in the Mags– somebody I can talk bugs, birds, and taxonomy with! Luckily he likes beer too. I am starting …
James Trujillo, RIP
My friend James “Viejo” Trujillo died today after a long struggle with diabetes. I’ll have a proper bio and memorial later, and a few stories. Raise a glass… Update 8 November: his card. Normal service to resume after (still another) funeral… (A happy Viejo story, previously blogged but worth repeating…) … for a while almost …