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 …
Tag: Birds
Dino- birds
A good XKCD on one of our favorite subjects from Peculiar:
A Few Birds
Coming back this weekend after work, sick days, and generally too much, and that dull. (Why is it so hard to pay writers dammit???) We will have links, pix, dog news, poetry. I will finally review David Quammen. I will announce others. There will be…. MORE. Tonight though, good photos… as always, right or double …
Birds of Paradise
Some marketers seemed to think that a fitting description of my last book’s subject, eagles, was “the most beautiful bird in the world”. To use a more polite word than I usually would, nonsense! There are many contenders; this pheasant has always been a favorite: Even more so when displaying But there are even better …
Rude scary poster
From Annie Davidson. My preferred caption is: “So Feduccia: explain to me again how birds aren’t dinosaurs…” More on the “controversy” (not very, actually) here.
Wanderer
Josh and Stella, neighbors a couple of houses south, came knocking last night as we were going to bed. Libby called me to the door to say they had a “strange bird”. In the dim light of the entry I thought (perfectly reasonable) snipe or dowitcher, but when I welcomed them in and turned on …
Cladistics
From the always reliable XKCD, via Jonathan who just emailed that he was in Nairobi impatiently waiting to go out in the bush. We should all be so lucky as to have THAT cause for impatience!
Most Beautiful Pigeon?
Annie D sent an anonymous web mail of over- the- top- birds. One is of my favorite wild pigeon, the Nicobar (Caloenas nicobarica) of the east Indies. I’d be glad to credit it–?
Commonplace Book
From an essay by Jonathan Rosen (author of the highly recommended The Life of the Skies), in an essay in Richard Barnes’ Animal Logic, which I recently posted on: “All this talk of artificiality mingled with reality might seem like mere aesthetic maundering except for the fact that artificiality isn’t something imposed on human existence, …
Himalaya and Tragopans
Dr Hypercube recently mentioned the excellent book Tales of the Himalaya: Adventures of a Naturalist by the late Lawrence Swan of Darjeeling and California. I would have loved to know Swan, who climbed and collected all over the mountains and valleys I long to see, and may have been the last in a long line …