Adam Gopnik’s piece “Dog Story” in the New Yorker for 11 August (available online only for subscribers I think) is full of nuggets, observations, and pointers to good books including Derr’s forthcoming one which should be essential. Meanwhile there are good “detachable quotes”: “She does a better impersonation of a person than we do as …
Tag: Evolution
Some Evo Books…
A friend of a friend, who was not as I was raised in what I might called the Evolutionary Tradition (but most emphatically in the religious one), wrote something disbelieving of evo orthodoxy. Often such things raise my hackles. But this seemed a golden moment to sway minds rather than be snarky, so I responded …
The New World
Peculiar notes with approval a new edition of Frederick Turner’s first (!) epic, The New World, which takes place in a not too distant future. Nice cover too. Fred is one of the too-little- known wonders of our time. The breadth of his erudition and what he takes on for poetic subject matter (evolution, terraforming …
Three Small Falcons, and Thoughts on Speciation…
Anne Price of the Raptor Education Foundation flies the excellent taiga merlin Tish, who has been drawn by Vadim Gorbatov “bulldogging” a starling (Cowgirl Tish). We were discussing Cheetah who is half taita (or teita) falcon. The species lives in the river gorges of eastern and southern Africa– I have seen nests near Victoria Falls. …
In which I quote myself…
At the end of the day it is hard to type and I want to go to the Spur to meet Lib. It has also been effin’ FREEZING, never good for PD. Which is my excuse for quoting from a letter to Brett Booth of Demonpuppy instead of writing an essay. The letter was mostly …
Two quick links
Tim Gallagher just sent this link to a new study of passenger pigeon genetics.It is NOT a big mourning dove, and is closer despite its long tail to New World Columba like the bandtail. This might give more weight to some of my speculations in A Feathered Tempest (developed more succinctly in my recent Living …
Bird Nerd Review Post
Heavy (bird) science warning! John Burchard asked me recently about the current evolutionary status of New World Vultures, and I realized my answer “reviewed” a book I had been meaning to. So consider the following to be my semi- official review of the amazing book The Inner Bird by Gary Kaiser. The very latest– this …
Chinese Tazis Continued
When I wrote about old tazis in Asia recently one commenter sneered and asked if I thought Chinese “sheepheads” were ancient too, meaning the roman- nosed tazis of northwestern China (colloquially, “thin dogs”). I replied with this image from Prince Xanghui’s 8th Century tomb. Here is a recent photo of a similar hound, a male …
Jeff Lockwood on Speciation
A few thoughts from Jeff on the nature of species my prompted by my “Big Black Nemesis” post. I like “constrained perspectivism”. And notice he is a fellow Asia- phile (;-) Book reviews and some photos coming… “The photos at “Lauren” are great—I love the eagle booties and the landscape images (I’d swear that Mongolia …
One Link…
Long day, more visitors coming. But my speculations on the nature of the passenger pigeon at Living Bird are now online. Check them out and let me know what you think?