I have been– I hope forgivably– absent, doing an article, a review, and a long shot (double? triple?) book proposal. As I type too slowly these days, and dictation is still slow for technicalia and odd language, I haven’t had the energy for much blogging; I have done over 12,000 words in the last week …
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Curlew and company
It’s a thrill for me every spring when I encounter a group of long-billed curlew, which I had the pleasure of finding Saturday alongside the highway north of Daniel, Wyoming.They are beautiful and graceful birds, but these guys sure had dirty bills and feet from plodding along in the mud, poking for treasures. A little …
Blind Cave Cockatoos: An Exchange (Real Zoo # 6)
The Real Zoo had a blind Cockatoo named Cookie, who did not live in a cave. In one of our discussions I mentioned The Incident of the Blind Cave Cockatoo. I should add that in those days I, Paul, and our supervisor Richard were the three people with the responsibility to teach the flock of …
Headline of the Week
From Arthur Wilderson: “Swedish flamingoes massacred in frenzied anteater attack”. It is actually true if a bit breathless… Prompted by this and perhaps the recent Zoo posts, Arthur added some thoughts on a distant relative, the ground-dwelling late- Pleistocene monster Megatherium: “I saw a mounted megatherium skeleton in Chicago’s Field Museum. I was pretty impressed, …
“Une Chienne de Barbarie”
Another non- Arab or at least geographically North African portrait, from the Louvre, courtesy of Daniela. The given title as I got it was “”Un Chien de Barbarie”, but given the obvious I have changed the sex in the title! Daniela called the portrait “a little ‘Taik”– see below (top, most recent, by GG)…
Queen Victoria’s Hound?
Terence Clark sent a fine Landseer portrait from the 19th century of what appears to be a female saluki– or, better, tazi; actually to my eye the dog seems eastern, Asian, even specifically “Turkmeni”. She is doing the rarely portrayed “propitiating” smile and but for color resembles Ataika I think. Terence said, quoting the Country …
Old Bird
Last week, Anne Price of the REF e- mailed to tell me that her Harris tiercel Indiana Jones had died, very much of old age and attendant frailties. Anne: “This morning I said goodbye Indiana Jones, a.k.a. Indi, my Harris Hawk. I would be lying if I said I weren’t sad, but he was kind …
Dancing for the joy of spring
Had to haul our last load of hay from our friend’s ranch on Sunday. It was very overcast and the ranch is ancient and captivating. These sandhill cranes were in the fields, and I’m sure they were dancing for the sheer joy of spring, rather than simply practicing their mating dances they will soon be …
“Zarzo”
…is what Tom Russell calls Montana poet, sometime cowboy, and hard- core writer Paul Zarzyski Recently Tom sent me Zarzyski’s 51–“30 poems, 20 lyrics, 1 Self- Interview”, and it is the best “Western” book and the best “Writing” book I have read in an age. Paul is often lumped with the Cowboy Poets and has …
Real Zoo #5: Squirrelly
From Other Steve: Every Spring, children living near the zoo would come in with baby squirrels that they had “found.” Chances are, they had been found after the children had knocked them out of their nests, but, each year, we’d take them in and the girls who made up the diets in the kitchen would …