The first issue of a splendid new magazine, “The publication for environmentally responsible, worldwide vehicle-dependent expedition and adventure travel”, has just become available. Editors include the Alpha Environmentalist and Roseann of Three Martini Lunch . Both content and style are first- rate. This is going to be a good one.
Ice Age Impact?
Scroll down from here to that title to hear a Canadian broadcast on the possible 13,000- year old meteor strike that may have been implicated in the North American Pleistocene extinctions. We will be hearing more about this. (HT Walter Hingley).
Darwin’s Letters
Annie D just introduced me to this treasure trove of Darwin’s letters. She quoted a very youthful (twelve- year old) Darwin on– washing: “Just as I was going, she said she must ask me not a very decentquestion, that was whether I wash all over every morning — no — thenshe said it was quite …
Real Hunting…
… and otherwise. On Henry Chappell’s Home Range, he takes us out for a few days of old- fashioned East Texas hunting, fishing, and eating— bream fishing with bait, squirrel hunting with dogs, night hunting for raccoons. This is hunting- gathering as a life. Good pics too! On the (very) other hand, Dave Petzal, the …
New Wolf Species
Darren has been too busy to post anything but amazing pictures, but he did email me a heads up on–!– not one but TWO new wolf species! “I’ve been following the story here (popular articles and shorter papers reporting the relevant discoveries have been appearing since 2003 at least), but finally we have the full …
The Roller Scandal
Eight (so far) California roller pigeon fanciers have been targeted in a Federal sting operation and accused of killing as many as 2000 raptors, apparently mostly urban Cooper’s hawks. Some of the info is pretty ugly: “Navarro allegedly told an undercover Fish and Wildlife Service agent that he likes to “pummel” the hawks that he …
Water Bird
A Black-necked Stilt in Devereaux Slough near Goleta.
Reggie Apprehended
Reggie, the released pet alligator at large in Machado Lake in Los Angeles, who Matt and I posted about back in 2005, has finally been caught. Reggie had a good long run on his own, and certainly had more than his fifteen minutes of fame as a media sensation in LA. It appears his future …
CSI: NIMBY
Time has an interesting piece on the problems that Texas State University is having in trying to get approvals to site a “body farm” where human bodies can be left to decompose in the open for research in forensic anthropology. Even the nearby airport objects that it would attract vultures that might collide with airplanes! …
More Airport Art
I was passing through the Phoenix airport some days ago, and looked into the store that carries these magnificent metal bat sculptures. I saw that the same artist has expanded his line of winged creatures to cover Gamble’s quail (see above) And roadrunners. The roadrunner’s legs are made of rebar.Nice, but not in the same …