Female Harpy from the somewhere in the Neotropics. Look at those feet, consider her diet, and tell me one of these wouldn’t “eat your kid” as Dan M used to say. HT to David Zincavage
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Paleo Art comes of age…
Which doesn’t mean gets dull and predictable. On the contrary, the abundance of “new” fossils has given birth to a generation of artistic and scientific iconoclasts whose bold new vision is far more rooted in the past than any older generation’s was. The inimitable polymath and prodigiously productive blogger Darren Naish, a serious anatomist, was …
Lesotho – the kingdom in the sky
Jim and I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Lesotho and South Africa. While we enjoyed our journey into the heart of traditional Zululand in South Africa (a future post), our arrival in the high alpine mountains of Lesotho was the discovery of Shangri-La. The Kingdom of Lesotho is an independent nation entirely …
Lahav RIP
Daniela Imre’s Lahav, one of the greatest dogs I have ever known, is dead at 15. He was her constant companion, a coursing champion, a hunter, a defender and guardian. He distrusted most male humans and would threaten them for their presumption if they got near Daniela. She called him the Munchkin: I, “The Muncher …
And still another quote
Pancho Villa’s dying words, spoken to a journalist after he was shot by assassins in 1923: “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
Quote
How agreeable it is to do nothing all day and to rest afterwards. – French saying quoted in letter from Patrick Leigh Fermor to Deborah Devonshire, 1970.
Book Love
Back in May, our daughter Lauren, three year-old granddaughter Bella, and I were browsing in a Barnes & Noble bookstore one evening. After a while, Bella came up to me, handed me a book, and said, “Grandpa, this book WANTS me!” I replied, “I know EXACTLY how that feels.” And of course I bought the …
Their Mamas Know They’re Handsome
Red-winged blackbirds are the most common visitor we have at our feeders, but paradoxically I rarely post about them. We were visited by a gaggle of red-winged fledgelings a few days ago that inspired me to write this. For those of you who don’t live in North America and/or aren’t familiar with the species I’ll …
Two Dixons and a Rungius
Last Sunday, Connie and I went to the Denver Art Museum to see their knock-out Navajo textile special exhibit called Red, White and Bold. It puts together the best 19th century rugs from the collections of the Art Museum, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the University of Colorado Museum. Runs through September 22 …
John Graves, R.I.P.
Henry Chappell just emailed to tell me that John Graves, Texas writer and living legend, just died at (I think) 93. John was a true Texan with deep roots, a civilized man, a WWII vet who had lived in Europe but eventually preferred his roots, a conservationist and localist before such things were chic, and …