Monday, April 2. 2007
Today: Fox Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Purple Grackle, Goldfinch, Slate-colored Junco, Cardinal, Blue Jay, White Throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, House Finch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Chickadee, Mourning Dove, Tufted Titmouse.
Friday, March 30. 2007
 Why is the overfishing of sharks leading to a serious decrease in scallops on the East coast? Explained here.
I think shark fishing is stupid anyway. What's the point? People chum for them, catch them, kill them, take a photo, and throw the thing overboard. Not sporting, not manly. People - not the government - should decide to quit it. Image: A Sea Scallop, the source of those big "scallops" at the fish market.
Saturday, March 17. 2007
 In the snow, today: Fox Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White Throated Sparrow, Tufted Titmouse, Cardinal, Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Goldfinch, Slate-Colored Junco. Plus a very cold-looking Robin taking the last few holly berries.
Not too exciting, but it's good to see them all enjoying the free lunch. And you never know when you might see something unusual. Image: Fox Sparrow. Our eastern version of this large sparrow is rusty red, and likes to scratch on the ground.
We aren't into cat blogging (or cats), but we'll make an exception this time. This pussy cat was haunting someone's back deck in the snow in Mason, Texas recently, trying to get a better look at two young kids playing on the floor inside. (Thanks, BL.) Read this, if you like to hang out in Mountain Lion territory.  
Thursday, March 15. 2007
 I stepped outside to do some chores today, and a Killdeer flew over the house, calling his name loudly. It is the time of year when they are on the move north, but the snow and sleet we have coming today will slow the migrants down a bit.
Killdeer is found across the entire US and most of Canada. He is a large plover - technically a shorebird - but more often found in inland fields that at the shore. I have always enjoyed these birds, probably because they are so easy to identify. They are famous for their broken-wing deception - the original victimhood scam. Read about Killdeer at CLO here.
Saturday, February 24. 2007
 The large Barred Owl, like our Great Horned Owl, is hooting, nesting, and laying eggs about now, up here. You can hear his deep "Who cooks for yoooo? Who cooks for you-all" across the frozen nighttime moon-lit marshes.
It's tough being on the bottom of the food chain. In the uplands, rodents have to deal with the Red-Tail during the day and with the Great Horned at night; in the lowlands with the Red Shouldered during the day and the Barred Owl at night. More about Barred Owl here at CLO. Also, somebody made a Barred Owl Cam. It seems that they will use large nest boxes, but I have only seen them using old hawk or crow nests. Their range and numbers are expanding. They are the same species as Spotted Owl, since they interbreed. Different races.
Friday, February 23. 2007
Visiting the bird-feeder today: Purple Grackle, Tree Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White Throated Sparrow, Mockingbird, Cardinal, Blue Jay, Slate-Colored Junco, Mourning Dove, Goldfinch. Not very exciting species, but all welcome. Usually a few Nuthatches, Downies, and Titmice, but not today.
Saturday, February 3. 2007
 READ THIS SPEECH, if you do nothing else today.
Fascinating, and full of examples and images. I won't quote from it because it the link contains all sorts of frightening copyright warnings. It is from 2005. In my opinion, getting speeches like this distributed and read is the best thing blogs can do: it's the magic of the link, which we already take for granted. (Thanks, reader, for letting us know about this speech.)
Thursday, February 1. 2007
 As a low moves up from the south into New England this afternoon, promising to bring a bit of snow and ice with it, the birds out my window are getting ready before darkness falls. I have rarely seen so much activity.
A small flock of around 10 robins are hitting the holly berries and the rose hips hard, and tossing leaves in a leaf pile around like crazy, looking for bugs. Juncos all around, and white-throated sparrows are scratching little pits in the garden mulch. A fat and handsome flicker came within two feet of my window, trying to get his beak into the half-frozen garden soil next to the foundation. Best of all, a Hermit Thrush. He was eating some of the holly berries, and generally poking around. Except for robins, the Hermit is our hardiest thrush. His rusty tail diagnoses him and, in summer, his song. Read about the Hermit Thrush here, (CLO) from which the image is borrowed.
Wednesday, January 31. 2007
These animals should be killed. There is no reason on earth to keep such dangerous mongrels alive, and the risk for escape seems obvious. If the story was intended to be heartwarming, it wasn't. Real wolves - fine. But these things are an insult to nature.
 Story from the AP:
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- It's not all checking hunting and fishing licenses. Sometimes the issues are bigger. Like when a Nevada game warden was Handed the chore of figuring out how to separate two bull elk who locked horns while sparring and couldn't untangle them.
The saga began Nov. 21 when a rancher in Reese River Valley spotted the two elk.
By the following day, the animals were gone and the rancher assumed they had separated.
A week later, according to Nevada Division of Wildlife biologist Tom Donham, the rancher was out looking for some of his cows and saw the elk again.
This time, he called the wildlife department and Donham, game warden Brian Eller and Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist Bryson Code headed out to see what they could do.
When they reached Indian Valley, south of Austin, it was Nov. 29, one week after the elk were first seen.
"When we arrived where the rancher had last seen them, we found them pretty quickly. They were both lying on the ground and one of them was in a very uncomfortable looking position with his head directly above the others head and his nose pointing straight up to the sky," Donham said. Eller said he wondered if they had survived their ordeal.
"Once we found out they were alive, I was hoping they couldn't move and would stay where they were. That didn't happen. When they ran off, I was hoping that they could not go very far. That didn't happen either," he said.
The elk may have been sparring at the outset, but Donham and Eller say they used teamwork to run for nearly a mile to evade the newcomers. "It looked like they had been doing it all their lives; serious cooperation if I've ever seen it," Donham said.
After two unsuccessful attempts, Donham was able to get a tranquilizer dart into one of the elk. With one down, the other could not run, but was also partially tranquilized in order to separate the two.
Continue reading "Elk Story"
Thursday, January 25. 2007
 Can't you feel 'em circlin' honey?
Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around?
You got fins to the left, fins to the right,
and you're the only bait in town.
You got fins to the left, fins to the right,
and you're the only girl in town.
(Jimmy Buffet's "Fins," of course) A primeval Frilled Shark has been videotaped.
Friday, January 19. 2007
This photo was taken near Marenisco, MI. The only thing rarer than an albino moose is two albino moosies. 
Monday, January 1. 2007
 It's still hunting season, but it is plant catalog season too. Here are a few interesting things we came across in the Wayside catalog.
Little Honey Oakleaf Hydrangea (photo)
Clematis Recta purpurea - small, upright clematis with purple leaves
Hosta Blue Mouse Ears - a cool mini-hosta
Fountain Buddleia
Dwarf Echinacea
Pink Muhly Grass
Tuesday, December 19. 2006
Best piece I have seen on the Lord Monkton letter (a perfect smack-down) and the whole politicization of geology and climatology in the interest of state and/or bureaucratic control over the world economy - at Classical Values. Read his piece - it is funny. One thing I wonder about is not how much politicans hurt themselves when they get on quasi-religious bandwagons like this - we expect them to be foolish - but about how much scientists discredit themselves and the profession in this way. I cannot remember a time in my life when loud scientists were right about any public policy or about any long-term prediction. Correct me if I am wrong (I know you will.). Just off the top of my head: the population "bomb," "Star Wars", the ABM Treaty, the Global Cooling Crisis, how to make peace with the USSR (surrender), Vietnam (surrender), the earth running out of oil (1970s), not to mention endless medical and health scares. People will gradually just tune out the hysteria.
Florida's pythons. I hate this story. (h/t, HH) 750' bungee jump. Not for me, thanks - I just ate. Video Not worth reading: The real EU Islamophobia report. Just plain pathetic.
Thursday, December 14. 2006
Don't forget to check the sky tonight, mainly in the northern US. Here's the polar view of the areas involved, from NOAA.
A coronal mass ejection should hit us tonight - a little gift from Mr. Sun. Could be a nice aurora, in Yankeeland. 
Friday, December 8. 2006
He calls himself a "heretic." One quote: He also cautioned that people may be kidding themselves if they imagine it is possible to stabilize the Earth’s climate.
“The biosphere was constantly changing in the past and it will be constantly changing in the future,” Dyson said. “The idea that we can put a stop to change is a dangerous illusion.”
Also: “All our fashionable worries and all our prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in 50 years,” Dyson said.
More from his speech at Synthstuff. We are in very good company if we see it as he does. Wish he would speak out more.
Saturday, December 2. 2006
With a good chart of the CO2 cycle. Maxed Out
Thursday, November 30. 2006
 No fresh postings today, because your Editor Dog in Chief, along with most of the Maggie's Farm crew, are working on an annual fund-raising event for our Ducks Unlimited Sponsor's Dinner tonight, and setting-up takes all day.
By 6 pm, we will be ready to receive an onslaught of 180 well-dressed guys with an open bar, and a fine steak dinner later, with about 70 cool raffle items, 30 Live Auction items including stuff like a 10-day African Hunting Safari for four, and 9 days in Morocco for two with a full-time guide, and dove shooting in Argentina for three days. Even a wild boar hunt in Texas, and a traditional layout duck hunt on Long Island, and other equally cool stuff like his-and-her Rolexes, and lots of guns, too. The place will be decorated for Christmas. Like modern-day Christmas, our event is a jolly, earthly, material festivity with a spiritual purpose. For many people on the left and right coasts, DU is not as familiar as it is in the heartland of the US and Canada, but with over 11 million acres of wildlife habitat under protection, and over 800,000 members, it is a big organization, and does nothing but good works, with minimal lobbying, and no political action. Contrary to the impression of some, DU isn't all about ducks - it's all about protection of fragile and threatened habitats which support all sorts of critters and birds. While probably most members of DU rarely hunt, DU does have a bit of a hunting flavor to it. Why? Good hunters know the land, and have a feel for it, like the Indians did. The wise ones know the plants and trees and birds and the geography and the habitats. Hunters are the most serious conservationists, because they really get out there, off the beaten path and into the wild world. Your average "greeny" rarely loses their boot in a bog, or surprises a moose in a meadow, gets near-frostbite in a duckboat at 4 AM in a January snow, awaiting sunrise, or watches a red fox trotting home in the early morning from their tree stand, or even sees a Woodcock twitter through the birches. It isn't an abstraction when a subdivision destroys your favorite grouse cover, or fills in your favorite duck swamp "for the tax revenue". All of us Maggie's Farmers consider DU worthy of our effort and our giving. We consider it part of good stewardship - good citizenship, and it's good fun too. You can read all about DU here.
Friday, November 17. 2006
Our highly popular cattle-blogging series is close to the end, and the final exam will be coming soon. Don't miss out on the fun! Most popular in the US is the Black Angus. This Scottish breed was brought to the US after the Civil War, and soon replaced the Shorthorns and Longhorns. 
The white-faced Hereford, from Herfordshire, England, is the dominant beef breed in the western US. Herefords were not imported to the US in large numbers until after 1890. The hornless variety are Polled Herefords. 
The Charolais is often used to hybridize with Angus and Herefords: 
Thursday, November 2. 2006
 One of the few large Ice Age Pleistocene mammmals surviving in North America, and still in some parts of northern Europe, is the Musk Ox. I am always surprised to remember that there are Musk Oxen in Canada - they are rarely a subject of cocktail party conversation - unless you have the bad luck to be chatting with the dull and pedantic Bird Dog.
They are the Bison of the Tundra - but they are not bovines, despite their appearance and name. They are closer to goats. Remarkably, there is a group in Alaska which is breeding them for domestication, which does seem 6000 years too late. A bit about these remarkable critters here. Can they be hunted? Once you get up there, it's too much like shooting a cow in a pasture. The Eskimos kill them, though, but they kill anything, including seagulls.
Friday, October 27. 2006
From Sailing Anarchy: "We recently sailed in a race from St Simon Island GA to Ameilia Island FL with my 70 year old father, brother in law and brother last weekend. We won the race.
In the middle of a 60 feet deep channel between two islands separated by about two miles was a six point buck swimming at about three knots."10/27/06 
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