Baby Gyr- Saker tiercel just in from New York, having his first meal at Casa Querencia. Stephen Grant of London Best quality hammer side- lever 12- bore, circa 1880, virtually new and unrestored. It weighs a bit over 7 lbs and is probably a pigeon gun. To quote expert Robert Braden: “After all, it is …
I’m baaack!– links & previews
Spent the last couple of weeks doing a proposal, outline, and sample chapters, for a book I hope will take me back to Kazakhstan. Let’s hope that this turns out better than the last (still in limbo.) But despite brokeness and worry some good stuff has been happening, to say the least. Not only have …
Grackle
Thought I would close out my Friday with this pic of a cocky great-tailed grackle hanging out on our deck.
Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain
So says this article from the Science section of the NY Times. From my perspective in my mid-50s, I find this absolutely believable.
The Condor
I thought I would post this image of the cover of the February issue, just in case you had any questions about how the editorial staff feels about wind turbines.
More Backyard Birds
In this case, a very relaxed Harris’ hawk, fat and sassy in summer mode. I was sitting on the back porch last night reading Dan Manix’s wonderful, self-indulgent A Sporting Chance: Unusual Methods of Hunting. I’ve read the book numerous times; it was one of my early influences, neatly containing short treatises on several interests …
Quote of the Day
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man –Mark Twain
Feeder Friends
Returning from California, I finally got my act together and placed a couple of bird feeders on my deck, something I’d been meaning to do for some time. We’ve been enjoying our visitors and I have been having fun trying to get pictures of them. Like this downy woodpecker… this black-headed grosbeak …. …and these …
Bottom of the Barrel
This Denver Post article tells us that United Airlines and US Airways, who are in merger talks, are the two lowest rated airlines in customer satisfaction in this country. I wasn’t asked to vote, but having to fly both of them fairly frequently out of DIA, I wouldn’t disagree.
The Shroud
When I was a young man I was fascinated by the Shroud of Turin, mostly I think because of the striking image that it carries. In the late 1980s the game seemed to be up on its status as a religious relict when radiocarbon assays on cloth fibers from the Shroud showed it dated no …