I just finished an article on Turkish pigeons for the excellent online pigeon mag Aviphilia and am getting caught up,so will I hope soon return to real blogging. Meanwhile, a roundup of things serious and trivial.. At Three Martini Lunch, Roseannn– between recipes!– has just posted on her recent diagnosis with breast cancer. That such …
Category: Uncategorized
Scenes from Magdalena
For the best words on Magdalena and thereabouts, I recommend you first to Steve. His vivid descriptions of the place–his base camp for more than twenty years–provide evocative settings for many of his published works. Though Steve travels widely, his frequent musings on what’s familiar or different about each place he visits suggest his mind …
Back Home
Composite of Magdalenan landscape and a trio of Steve’s pigeons in flightJust a quick note with more (and worse) to follow. I’m back in from a record-breaking November hawking trip: 3,000 miles over nine days and from Zero to 7,000+ feet of elevation. Lungs, butt and truck all still feeling the trip! As mentioned below, …
Rock Art Convergence
A while back Steve and I posted on some common features that we had seen with regard to representations of shamanism in rock art. I shared pictures from Little Petroglyph Canyon in Inyo County, California, and Steve showed his from the site of Tamgaly outside of Almaty in Kazakhstan. Steve sent me this picture of …
Humpbacks
One interesting thing you can easily do here in Santa Barbara is whale watching. Gray Whales, Blue Whales, and Humpbacks all migrate through the Santa Barbara Channel at various times of the year and there are a number of boats out of the harbor here and down in Ventura who will take you out for …
Around the Web
Not much time to blog– Matt just swooped through (and I expect will have pics and maybe video soon) and guests plus Mr. and Mrs. Peculiar are coming for Thanksgiving. But here are a few tidbits to tide you over. Attention houndmen: PETA is trying to steal your dogs. HT Patrick of course. As I …
Another Quiz
Anyone want to try and identify these three crania? That is a centimeter scale for reference. ANSWERSFrom left to right:Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)Barn Owl (Tyto alba) Very good everyone and thank you! “In vino veritas,” eh, Pluvialis?
Mercy
Falconer, author, blogger, and Team Red proprietor Rebecca O’Connor has had her essay “Mercy” published in the South Dakota Review. Congratulations Rebecca!
Betsy
Twenty years ago Saturday, Betsy Huntington died. She accompanied me from Boston to New Mexico, where we made a home,and where I still live. She was the first person I knew to use the word “querencia”, and she is the single biggest influence on who I am today. I am not sure how much I …
Packrat Middens
Earlier this week, the New York Times had an article on the use of packrat middens as sources of proxy data for climatic reconstruction. These middens have been an important source of data in the western US for decades, but I can’t remember seeing another piece on this in the popular press. From the article: …