Conor Mark Jameson, who might be familiar to readers of the blog from his involvment in getting the TH White memorial plaque up at the World Center at Boise, or for his excellent book Looking for the Goshawk, has a new title out: Shrewdunnit: The Nature Files. Shrewdunnit is done in an old form, one …
Tag: Natural History
Beebe
Will Beebe, naturalist, writer, inventor, New York socialite, jungle and ocean explorer, is a man whose like it would be hard to have today. But without his example, I don’t know if I would be the person I am. Tom McGuane also cites him as a childhood inspiration, not for writing (I think he slights …
New Creature
Annie Davidson sent this video of a new siphonophore, more beautiful and odder than a Portuguese Man o’ War, the only well- known member of the family. Was it Arthur Wilderson who recently observed that the ocean’s abyss is full of “new” life forms, as odd as anything in science fiction?
Moroccan Hawk ID
Terence Clark has been in Morocco for the Festival of Traditional Hunting, where he photographed some hawks. Most were Peregrines of the migrant race that they call Shahin Bari, “Bari” meaning “of the sea”– probably the far- northern Falco peregrinus calidus, which may have flown from as far as Siberia. But the young man on …
Two old (or old- fashioned) naturalists, and new photo series
Two old farts in the bar courtyard. John Wilson is an old style bug catching (or photographing) “stamp collector” naturalist like me, an Ohioan who retired from an Audubon sanctuary there to a remote homestead in the Mags– somebody I can talk bugs, birds, and taxonomy with! Luckily he likes beer too. I am starting …
One more from Cap’n Rick
Whale breeching near tuna boat. Rick: “I have hours of whale videos and every day we go for tuna it’s a spectacular whale show. Here’s a pic I took– when the whale landed everyone in the boat got soaked!”
Flower, Lizard…
For us, however brown it looks to you, it has been a “wet” green spring. Didn’t see a collared lizard last year but saw TWO on the ruin in an hour. The cooperative one was basking on the Yawheh graffiti rock: Any botanizers out there who can ID this flower? It is not a common …
Running Dogs
Herb Wells of Alpaugh CA takes the most amazing photos of coursing dogs I have ever seen- probably that anyone has. A couple of sets here. The first three pics demonstrate the incredible and totally normal hyperextension and flexing of a running dog’s first joints (third is also one of out own breeding, Daniela’s Shunkar). …
Andrey’s Photos
Andrey Kovalenko, ornithologist, breeder of our Kyran, and ace photographer, has a new wildlife photo site. He travels all over Central Asia but I bet more of them are from his own Kazakhstan , with its incredibly varied landscape, than anywhere else. Here is an example, plus one of him with Kyran’s father Berkut and …
Flock Flight
I never tire of watching the great winter flocks of birds like starlings, moving with eerie grace like some superorganism, supposedly by obeying very simple rules. (Photo, sent anonymously a year or two ago, by Manuel Presti; thanks, PD!) This is most obvious when birds are under attack.Bill Kessler sent this amazing YouTube filmed in …