Steve Grayson, 1950- 2014

My friend Steve Grayson died two nights ago. He owned the Golden Spur for over thirty years, and made it into THE community center for Magdalena and the surrounding ranches. Betsy Huntington and I met most of the people I still know there, not to mention the increasing number we have lost. He makes an …

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White Man in Africa, 1997

Dug this up when Annie D showed me a YouTube of a baby rhino– white? — in S Africa, in a similar predicament. Back in ’97, when it was permissible if naive to think Mugabe was not a monster (such writers as Peter Godwin had already laid out the truth), when Zimbabwe had one of …

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Birdage

Rio with his ball. He still has down. I am not used to hulking 38 ounce tiercels and their prolonged infancy- biggest male falcon I have ever flown, and slowest to mature. Though it may take him into the rains… cool, in several senses…

Domesticity

Rio seems to be looking over Libby’s shoulder as she reviews my work on the Mac.

“…all Dinosaurs had feathers”

The report (HT John Wilson) begins: “The first ever example of a plant-eating dinosaur with feathers and scales has been discovered in Russia. Previously only flesh-eating dinosaurs were known to have had feathers so this new find indicates that all dinosaurs could have been feathered.” The big thing here is the “all” I have been …

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Quote

“What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.”– Raymond Aron

Ornithology

Bear with me for a little more photoblogging, as I am getting some work done. Here are two NM nests that fledged young this year, a Goshawk and a Peregrine, courtesy of Paul Domski.

Just for fun

From Jim at Frontier Partisan. What on earth do you think the Villistas were doing with that punt gun?