Swedish raptor stamps

Going through old papers, I came across an envelope given to me several years ago for the lovely Swedish stamps:


Closeup of the gyrfalcon (Jaktfalk):

Closeup of the osprey (Fiskgjuse):


The third stamp (which I didn't scan in isolation) is of Karlbergs Slott or Karlberg Palace, now a park and military academy. If anyone can point out a falconry connection, I'd be grateful.

Wolves: Defining the undefinable

It is really laughable to see what different ideas are prominent in various naturalists' minds, when they speak of "species". It all comes, I believe, from trying to define the undefinable.

—Charles Darwin, 1856

The June issue of Scientific American (yes, I'm behind on my reading) features an article on taxonomy entitled "What Is A Species?" It discusses various classification schemes, from the original (creationist) Linnean system to Ernst Mayr's biological species concept (based on reproductive compatibility or incompatibility) to the phylogenetic species concept (based on ancestry), and it opens with an enduring example of taxonomic controversy: classifying North America's wolves.

Most wolves in North America belong to a single species, the grey wolf or Canis lupus. (This is the same wolf found in Eurasia, the "big bad wolf" of folk stories.) Several subspecies exist, including the white wolf of the Arctic regions (C. l. arctos) and the small "lobo" or Mexican wolf found in the montane and desert Southwest (C. l. baileyi). In between are other populations, currently recognized as subspecies occidentalis (Northwestern wolf) and nubilis (the Great Plains wolf, a.k.a. buffalo wolf or timber wolf). The latter can be quite variable in appearance, but usually grey or black: the "standard issue" wolves of southern Canada, Yellowstone, and the North Woods of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. That's about as far as the consensus goes, however.

[Top to bottom: Arctic wolf, typical Great Plains wolf, and Mexican wolf: Photos by yours truly.]

Formerly resident throughout the Southeast, and now restricted to the area around Alligator NWR in northeastern North Carolina, the red wolf (Canis rufus) has been a taxonomic puzzle for some time. Some researchers question the validity of the species, thinking it may have originated as a hybrid of the grey wolf (C. lupus) and the "brush wolf" or coyote (C. latrans). Others point to the fact that the red wolf's geographic range was mostly separate from that of coyotes (until recently a strictly western species) and grey wolves (typically a northern species, although this should be considered more of a guideline than a rule).

Bigger questions arise when we consider the eastern timber wolf, the first to be encountered by Europeans in America. Some early naturalists believed it was not conspecific with the Old World wolf, Canis lupus, and so named it C. lycaon. Eventually, the eastern timber wolf was reclassified or "demoted" as a subspecies of the grey wolf, C. lupus lycaon. More recently, Canadian researchers have suggested that C. lycaon is in fact a valid species, and have offered the common name Algonquin wolf (after the population's epicenter in Algonquin Provincial Park). They have also suggested that the red wolf, C. rufus, might represent an isolated southern population of the Algonquin wolf. Skeptics think the Algonquin wolf, like the red wolf, might be a coyote-grey wolf hybrid, as coyotes have definitely made incursions into the Northeast.

Confused yet? This is supposed to be easy: The wolf, a large, reasonably well-known mammal close to home. Imagine taxonomy on, for example, rarely-seen look-alike birds or bats or lizards or fish or insects in remote tropical areas, or worse yet disjunct populations on tropical islands. (That line is for you, Andy; I know you've done some work in that line.) But North America's canids are not reproductively isolated, and so Mayr's BSC is of limited utility. Result: No one agrees on what constitutes a valid species. Arguably, we may have...

2 species: grey wolf and coyote (red and Algonquin wolves are hybrids)

3 species: grey wolf, red wolf, and coyote (Algonquin wolf is a hybrid)

3 species: grey wolf, Algonquin wolf, and coyote (red wolf is a hybrid)

3 species: grey wolf, combined Algonquin/red wolf, and coyote

4 species: grey wolf, red wolf, Algonquin wolf, and coyote (all valid species)

I personally incline to the four-species model—and then hasten to emphasize that I have no particular qualifications in taxonomy. I've been fortunate enough to have seen and heard many coyotes, howled with grey wolves in Minnesota, and sighted a red wolf during that species' all-too-brief reintroduction to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But those experiences, valuable as they are to me personally, have no bearing on the question of classification.

I left out another classification scheme: One species. "We like to call it Canis soup," says a researcher in the Scientific American article. Tongue-in-cheek it may be, but I think Darwin—who after all demolished the concept of completely fixed, created species in favor of a messier but more elegant and realistic view of the natural world—would have approved.

Tim Gallagher interview

Courtesy of WSKG Public Broadcasting in southeastern New York, a nice interview with Tim Gallagher for "Off the Page". Some falconers know him best as the current editor of NAFA's annual Journal, but Tim has also served for years as editor of Living Bird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's magazine. He has also written several books, including The Grail Bird, an account of the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. This interview centers on his most recent book, Falcon Fever. The audio file is 53 minutes, perhaps a bit long for the casual Web surfer, but Tim is a good story-teller and of course you can always keep surfing while you're listening.

HT Rebecca at Operation Desert Dove.

movie review: WALL-E

Went with Susie & Ellie to see WALL-E this afternoon, and left the cinema sufficiently impressed to attempt a movie review, a first for Flyover Country.



WALL-E is a trash-pickup-and-compaction robot, apparently the last of his kind, in a sterile post-apocalyptic world. His only companion, naturally enough, is a cockroach. This is a fairly dark setup for a Pixar feature, but WALL-E immediately establishes himself as a sympathetic character. (Yes, "last of his kind", "himself", and "character".) For reasons unknown, WALL-E is selective: Most trash (almost all of it bears the logo of Buy-N-Large, a Wal-Mart style superstore that apparently took over the world's economy altogether) is compacted into cubes, which are in turn stacked into skyscraper-high refuse piles. Certain artifacts of the vanished human culture, however, WALL-E places in an Igloo cooler and takes home (yes, he has a home) for his collection. He watches a VHS of Hello, Dolly! every evening, and has learned to replicate some of the musical's dances. Clearly there is a ghost in this machine, and expressive eyes give "voice" to WALL-E's spirit.

The ennui of endlessly repetitive days is broken when WALL-E finds a plant growing inside an old refrigerator, then again when a giant spaceship drops off a lethal (shoot laser blaster first, ask questions later) yet alluring probe. WALL-E manages to escape destruction, "befriends" the probe EVE, and shows her the Hello, Dolly! video along with other elements of his collection. But just as WALL-E was programmed to clean up trash, EVE obviously has a mission as well, and it's clear she is searching for something. When WALL-E offers her the plant as a "romantic" gesture, the pieces fall into place and the story changes gears: The giant spaceship returns to pick up EVE, the devoted WALL-E stows away, and they blast off to rejoin what is left of humanity aboard a Buy-N-Large starship far, far away.

WALL-E is a social and environmental parable, touching on themes such as rampant consumerism, overdependence on technology, sedentary lifestyles, and the decline of face-to-face communication, yet it doesn't beat you over the head with heavy moralizing. The interactions between WALL-E and EVE, despite the near-absense of dialogue, carry the film with poignance, humor and, yes, robotic romance. This isn't just a kids' movie, but it does work as a kids' movie. Go see it, with or without a kid—and by all means stay for the end credits, especially if you're a fan of Peter Gabriel's music. "Down to Earth", complete with soaring background vocals by the Soweto Gospel Choir, is my new favorite song after one listen.

photoblogging: eastern screech-owls

Trouble sleeping tonight, so my thoughts turned to owls, and I decided to reprise a photo essay from the Nebraska hawking journal. [Photos by me and the family.]

In late May and early June of 2005, a pair of eastern screech-owls (Otus asio) with their four recently-fledged young took up residence in our front yard—an excellent opportunity for photography and study.

↓ Owlet in treetop.


↓ Adult female with a mouse. Screech-owl diets vary with season and location. A Michigan population studied by John and Frank Craighead preyed heavily on mice, at least in the winter, but Baylor University researcher Frederick Gehlbach (The Eastern Screech Owl: Life History, Ecology, and Behavior in the Suburbs and Countryside) indicates that owls in his Texas study area relied primarily on birds.


↓ The adult female (center) feeds one of the fledglings (upper left) while another (lower right) waits its turn. The adult male does the majority of the hunting, but his mate always feeds the young. According to Gehlbach, these roles are so stereotyped that if the female is lost before the nestlings are capable of tearing their own food, they may starve in the midst of abundant but whole prey delivered by the male.

To my innocent eyes the only thing that falcons, owls, and parrots have in common is their oddly anthropomorphic habit of holding their food up to their mouths in one foot as they nibble.

—Stephen Bodio, A Rage for Falcons

↓ A study in camouflage: the grey color and tree-bark pattern of adult screech-owls help them remain hidden from predators and prey alike. Eastern screech-owls come in two basic color forms, rufous (red) and grey. Red is dominant to grey in terms of Mendelian genetics, but red screech-owls outnumber grey ones only in humid eastern forests. Grey makes for better camouflage in drier habitats, and for some reason red screech-owls are apparently less hardy in cold weather. Unsurprisingly, then, almost all screech-owls in Nebraska are grey.


↓ Screech-owls do well in suburban environments, partly because suburban owls have fewer predators and competitors to contend with than their rural counterparts. To survive to adulthood, though, these young screech-owls will have to avoid housecats, dogs, and cars—many screech-owls are struck and killed while catching worms on city streets during periods of rainy weather. Secondary poisoning is another threat.


↓ Once acclimated to human activity, screech-owls can become very confiding. The adults would take mice mere feet in front of us, in broad daylight. (The pressure of extra mouths to feed was undoubtedly a factor—outside of the breeding season, screech-owls are more strictly nocturnal.) They were frequently mobbed by robins but paid little attention. Gehlbach reports, incidentally, that the species most likely to mob screech-owls are those which figure most prominently on their menu. [Paper here.]

↓ Adult screech-owl on a favorite perch: shaded and half-hidden, with a good view of the surrounding ground—perfect for napping and hunting.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: please read

On the off chance that there's anyone reading Flyover Country who doesn't also read Terrierman's Daily Dose, please read this post at least.

Thank you.

Charley's gift, v. 2.0

Below is the essence of a previous post in visual form, courtesy of Wordle.net. (Clicking on the image will take you to a larger, more legible version.)



This new widget (at least I think it qualifies as a widget) lets you input text, then turns it into a visual representation. Repeated words appear larger, and users have the option of omitting common words like "a", "the", "of", etc. (For the above, I manually deleted all but selected key words.) A variety of fonts, color schemes and layouts are available as well. It's fun, and it's free! I see productivity plummeting as our informal writers' circle starts playing with this...

HT remchick, who sent me (appropriately enough) a Wordle collage of R.E.M. lyrics last night.

Renewal indeed

In a previous post, about 2 1/2 months ago, I wrote about our prairie garden and my lapse of faith in its capacity for renewal. Here's a picture of the front now:

Some of the wildflowers are four to five feet tall, and they may not be done growing. The bulk of what you see here is false (oxeye) sunflower, not yet in bloom. We're now talking about thinning it out to give the other forbs and the grasses a chance to compete.

In fact, the garden is growing so exuberantly that one of our neighbors filed an anonymous complaint with the county weed-control office, which is tasked not only with the control of noxious weeds such as purple loosestrife, tamarisk, and various non-native thistles (we have none of the above) but also with enforcement of Lincoln's 6-inch limit on lawns. Both the complaint and the initial inspection (apparently a hurried drive-by inspection) occurred before anything was in bloom; we were found to be harboring "weeds and worthless vegetation" and ordered to cut same.

I phoned and later e-mailed the superintendent of the weed-control office, who agreed to re-inspect the garden personally. That's been two weeks now, and I've yet to hear back from him, but I know his department is severely overworked. Here's some of what he'll find when he does come out (all of these photos were taken in the last few days):

Purple poppy mallow

Indian blanket

Yarrow

Desert prince's plume and white sage

Coreopsis and narrow-leaved purple coneflower

Black-eyed Susan

Butterfly milkweed

"Husker Red" penstemon

Wild penstemon

Prairie coneflower ("Mexican hat")

So what do you think? Weedy and worthless?

Me neither.

Meet the neighbors: plains garter snake

We've been seeing quite a few plains garter snakes (Thamnophis radix) in our yard and garden lately. This little beauty (in my head, I'm hearing that phrase in Steve Irwin's voice) had just eaten a large earthworm—along with small amphibians, one of the most common prey items for garter snakes.

The other local garter snake, the red-sided (T. sirtalis parietalis), I've never found around the house, possibly because we don't have water nearby. Both species can be found in aquatic habitats, but I suspect the red-sided is more water-dependent. If I get out fishing anytime soon, I'll try to photograph a red-sided for comparison.

One of my redtails, Pocomoke, was a confirmed ophidiovore. We hawked rabbits (or attempted to) well into March, but on warm days he vastly preferred to fill up on snakes, especially garters. (I brought Pocomoke to Nebraska from Georgia, and since he was trapped in the aftermath of a hurricane and later moulted into an unusually colorful plumage, I always suspected he might be a Florida redtail, Buteo jamaicensis umbrinus. Sub-tropical origin might have accounted for his taste for serpents.) Anyway, I'm glad that our yard (including the area around the mews) can serve as a refuge for these beautiful reptiles.

Wash me

This applies pretty well to my hawking 'Ru.

And that's final

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled today on two cases that will ensure Randolph College (formerly Randolph-Macon Woman's College) continues as a co-ed institution. [Brief article from The Chronicle of Higher Education here.]

One suit was filed by students who argued that they had, upon admission, been promised an education at an all-female college. The court held by a 5-2 margin that no such contract existed.

The second suit was filed by alumnae and other donors who argued that gifts to RMWC had been intended to support a women's college specifically. This sounds like a stronger argument to me, but the court ruled unanimously that the laws cited by the plaintiffs did not apply to this case.

Why do I care? First of all, I was a member of the last all-male undergraduate class admitted to Washington & Lee University, about an hour away via U.S. Highway 501 over the mountains. I remember hearing the argument, similar to that employed by the Randolph students, that we had been admitted to an all-male school and should be allowed to graduate from one. I don't know, however, if that argument was ever made before a court. In any case, I was content not to be "grandfathered in"—W&L's single-sex status wasn't a major factor in my decision to go there instead of Johns Hopkins or Maryland—and things turned out well in the end, as I eventually met my wife at W&L.

Another reason for my interest is that I have a number of friends from RMWC, mostly of the long-lost variety but one of whom qualifies as a lifelong friend. (In fact, I heard from her this morning after a long hiatus. I don't know yet if this was coincidence or if her thoughts turned to me because of the news, but I suppose I'll find out soon.) I suspect most of them would have preferred, for nostalgic reasons at least, that RMWC stayed RMWC.

I do think there are reasonable arguments to be made for the option of single-sex education, at private institutions anyway, and I'm mildly disappointed that this option was closed due to financial considerations at Randy Mac. On the bright side, my RMWC sweatshirt (if I can find it again) is now a collector's item...

The Creator's game

First, a belated congratulations to all of the NCAA lacrosse champions crowned over the Memorial Day weekend, especially the Salisbury Sea Gulls (D-III Men) from my own home state.

On to local stickball news...

With two games left in the season, Lincoln’s high-school club team is still looking for a win. Nevertheless, it’s been a successful first season in many ways. The kids, half of whom never picked up a lacrosse stick before this spring, have improved their skills dramatically. Our defense has been strong all season, limiting the opponents’ shots and keeping the games close. But what impresses me the most is the way the kids have bonded as a team. Initially, head coach Greg McManus and I had concerns about interschool rivalries—we have kids from at least four public schools and one Catholic school, and some of the kids have faced each other on the ice-hockey rink. Those concerns have vanished entirely. Last weekend, between games of a triple-header, the parents hosted a cookout, and rather than sitting with their families the kids arranged themselves in a large circle, laughing and joking with each other and leaving the families to do their own thing on the perimeter. Later, they played "bombardment", dividing into two groups and throwing impossibly long passes across an open field—five balls in flight at any one time, and the gods help anyone whose attention wavered. I cringed inwardly at the profligate expenditure of energy (three games in one day entails a lot of running) but simultaneously rejoiced to see these kids goofing off and enjoying each other’s company so un-selfconsciously.

As I said, there are two games left. Then we’ll play some fall ball, and be back next spring even stronger. We’re only losing one senior to graduation; most of the kids are freshmen or sophomores. With age and experience will come confidence, and eventually some W’s.

* * *

Actually, that age and experience thing can only go so far as an advantage. I’ll be playing lacrosse this summer for the Rhinos club team (West squad) out of Omaha. I’ve been to three practices so far, and I’ll admit to being a little frustrated. The last time I played a contact sport was ten years ago, when I was only 31—and I wasn’t exactly the fastest, most physical guy on the field even then. Now I’m dealing with a shaky left knee, a tendency to shin splints, and residual pain in my right foot and ankle from falling off my roof onto the sidewalk about six or seven years ago. (I crushed the metatarsals; when the orthopedist saw the X-rays at the ER, he announced optimistically that there was a pretty good chance I wouldn’t lose the foot that night. Thanks for the pep talk, doc.) All of which makes it hard to stay a step ahead of my defender, to say the least. Additionally, my stick skills are a lot rustier than those of the recent UNL graduates on the team—athletes about half my age. It’s been difficult to accept that I can’t necessarily keep up with these guys, that I am suddenly (or at least it seems sudden to me) "the old dude".

So I’m going to try for a deeper perspective...

Long ago, before Handsome Lake, before Heyenwatha or the Peacemaker or anyone else whose name is still remembered, the Creator gave the stickball game to the people, for the betterment of the people but also for his own amusement. Many Native players are buried with their favorite sticks; the Northern Lights are the spirits of departed lacrosse players, still playing in the heavens, or so the traditionalists believe. On Iroquois reservations in New York and Ontario, ritual games are still played each spring, clan against clan, with bare feet and wooden sticks. These games are rarely even; one clan might have twenty players to the other clan’s ten. Despite the mismatch, all parties play as hard as they can. The outcome is not important; playing the game is what matters.

Playing the game is what matters.

Charley's gift

I wish I had more time to prepare this, but I'll have a go at a Memorial Day story, commemorating an American hero unknown to most Americans, one who earned his heroic status by taking up arms against the U.S. Army and who eventually made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of freedom.

* * *

Gold was discovered at Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828. Word was slow to get out, but resulted the following year in the first gold rush in U.S. history. White settlers and land speculators were already calling for the removal of Indian tribes from the Southeast, and the presence of commercially viable gold deposits gave final impetus to this movement. The Treaty of New Echota was signed by Andrew Jackson's government and a minority faction (the Ridge party) of the Cherokee people at the end of 1835. Principal Chief John Ross and the tribal council pleaded with the Senate not to ratify the treaty, and later asked Congress to void the treaty, but both attempts were unsuccessful. (In fact, the government had been committed to a policy of removal since 1802, when Thomas Jefferson's administration obtained title to Georgia's western lands, now Alabama and Mississippi, in exchange for cash from the U.S. Treasury and a promise to extinguish Cherokee land claims in Georgia.) Forcible removal of the Cherokee people by the U.S. Army under the command of General Winfield Scott began soon thereafter.

These political machinations took place almost entirely within the Cherokee Nation proper, which had its capital at New Echota and represented "acculturated" or "progressive" Cherokee, who had adopted many aspects of the dominant white culture (including the holding of black slaves). Many traditional Cherokee, especially in western North Carolina, were largely unaware of or unconcerned with the political situation in New Echota. Instead of attempting to imitate or assimilate into white culture, they lived by the old ways of hunting, fishing, and farming small landholdings. One of these traditionals was a man named Tsali, known to some of his white neighbors as "Charley".

* * *

Tsali lived with his wife and family close to the confluence of the Nantahala and Little Tennessee (Tanasi) Rivers, near present-day Bryson City, North Carolina. When, in early November of 1838, soldiers arrived at Tsali's cabin and announced that the family must proceed to a stockade further down the Little Tennessee, they packed a few belongings, no doubt in a state of denial or disbelief, and set out for the stockade in the company of another family (headed by Tsali's brother-in-law) and a detachment of four soldiers under the command of Second Lieutenant Andrew Jackson Smith. Along the way, one of the soldiers impatiently prodded Tsali's wife with a bayonet—which is when things went from merely ugly to violent.

Speaking calmly in Cherokee, Tsali advised his companions to initiate a struggle when he feigned a fall. Accounts differ as to whether his intent was to engage in combat or merely to escape: some versions have one soldier dropping his rifle, accidentally discharging it into his own head; others say that one of the Cherokee men produced an ax from underneath his clothing and attacked a soldier. Whatever the actual sequence of events, in the ensuing chaos apparently one of the enlisted men was wounded and the others killed. Lieutenant Smith survived (according to his report) only because his horse became frightened and ran away with Smith still mounted. Tsali's party—five men, seven women and children in all—escaped, eventually sheltering somewhere on the Left Fork of Deep Creek, approximately three miles east of Clingman's Dome in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

* * *

General Scott, already in charge of Cherokee removal, tasked his troops with finding Tsali and the other "murderers", no easy task in the rough, densely wooded Smoky Mountains terrain. (Witness the FBI's 1998-2003 search for domestic terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph, who eluded capture for over five years in the North Carolina mountains despite the availability of significantly improved technology.) With General Scott's approval, Colonel William Foster approached William Holland Thomas, a white man who had been befriended and eventually adopted by the Cherokee, and enlisted his help in tracking down Tsali's party. The inducement: exemption from removal, both for those who assisted in the manhunt and for other "fugitive" traditionals who were hiding in the mountains and had not been involved in the fatal incident.

By November 24, Foster reported that all of Tsali's party, with the exception of Tsali himself, had been captured. Three men, including one of Tsali's sons and his brother-in-law, were executed by firing squad on the 23rd.

Tsali was captured and executed on November 25—and here, again, accounts differ as to the circumstances. Some say he was taken by surprise on the Tuckasegee (Dagasiyi) River; others that he had heard of Colonel Foster's exemption offer and willingly sacrificed himself in order to secure an eastern homeland for his surviving people. Ultimately, I'm not sure that the exact circumstances are as important as the results of his death. Tsali's reported last words, "It is sweet to die for one's country," may be apocryphal, but the fact is that his courageous sacrifice (willing or not) did help to ensure that some of his relatives were spared Nunna daul Isunyi—"the Trail Where The People Cried", better known as the Trail of Tears—and allowed to remain in the North Carolina mountains. (For once, the government honored its agreement, which may be the most striking element in the whole story.) Today, there are approximately 12,000 enrolled members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; approximately 8000 live on the Qualla Boundary (Eastern Cherokee Reservation) centered on the town of Cherokee, North Carolina.

[Flag of the Eastern Band]

* * *

William Holland Thomas, the man who brokered Tsali's capture and the eastern Cherokee's exemption from removal, was later recognized as a chief, and became a long-serving state senator. When war broke out in 1861, he recruited and led Thomas' Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders, two companies of Cherokee and six companies of whites, to fight for North Carolina and the Confederacy. His unit captured the town of Waynesville, North Carolina in May 1865; after learning of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia a month earlier, Colonel Thomas surrendered the legion. This was the last military action of the war's eastern theater. Late in life, he suffered from some form of mental illness, but remained dedicated to the Cherokee people, and served as an informant to Smithsonian ethnologist James Mooney.

General Winfield Scott, a Virginian, went the other way in 1861, remaining loyal to the Union and serving as the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff.

Of the later careers of Colonel Foster and Lieutenant Smith, I have thus far learned nothing.

* * *

I'd like someday to visit the graves of Tsali and his executed companions, to offer some tobacco and perhaps a Cherokee rose in remembrance, to reflect on the men's courage in the face of American military might, to honor through pilgrimage their sacrifice not just for their families but for the cause of human freedom. Unfortunately, that won't be happening anytime soon. They were buried near the stockade at Bushnell—the same stockade from which they were supposed to be sent west to the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. In the early 1940s, the Tennessee Valley Authority built the Fontana Dam, the Little Tennessee River inundated the valley, and the graves were put far out of reach, deep beneath the waters of Fontana Lake.

Another million-dollar idea that won't make me a penny

U.S. brewers and their marketing folks are behind the curve on this one: beer for dogs. Their counterparts in Australia and The Netherlands—go figure, right?—are producing dog-safe (and beef-flavoured) malt beverages for canine consumption. This probably says something profound about both modern civilisation and the ancient bond between man and dog...but I'm not sure exactly what.

Also, I can't help wondering: Since most dogs will already drink beer if given the chance (definitely not a good idea), why the beef flavouring?

HT Daily Dachshund and Dog News for the lead.

Nebraska peregrine update

I just got word today that the peregrine nest on the Capitol building in downtown Lincoln (see previous post) has failed. The expected hatch date was approximately May 10; when Nebraska Game & Parks personnel checked up on the 12th, they found only one egg. (The nest originally held four.) The adults were still incubating at that time, but apparently gave up a few days ago. Kind of a bummer for me—I would have enjoyed watching fledgling peregrines again—but hardly a calamity for the species. North American populations are at an all-time high, and breed in many areas (eastern Nebraska, for example) where they were historically absent.

One result of high populations is avid competition for scarce nesting sites, with breeding pairs augmented by a large number of unpaired "floaters". At the Woodmen Tower site in Omaha, the resident falcon was apparently challenged by an unpaired female, resulting in the injury of one and disappearance of the other. The resident tiercel subsequently "stopped sitting on the nest"—fairly predictable behavior, as his primary role at this point is hunting for the falcon and their eyasses rather than brooding—and the eyasses have been removed.

Some might get depressed at two failed nests, but again, this is a temporary and strictly local setback—and a fairly common occurrence in healthy peregrine populations. Healthy populations is what those of us who worked on peregrine recovery were after in the first place.

New tenants

This is our third spring in the new house (new to us, but built in 1920), and for the third time we have birds nesting in the southeast corner of the front porch. Robins built the original structure two years ago, and it was used by house finches last year. Both pairs successfully fledged young.

Now it's the mourning doves' turn; they've added a bit of dried grass atop the old robin nest, and lined it with green grass. Hope it turns out as well for them.

Mitchell shoots more than pretty pictures

Last weekend, contributing photographer Mitchell Renteria shot his first turkey—a 20-pound tom—near Cambridge, Nebraska.

Note the absense of elaborate camouflage (he was in a blind) and other paraphernalia. All it took was knowing where turkeys were likely to be, the ability to sit still for an hour and a half, and a good eye over the shotgun barrel. (He's on his high-school trap-shooting team, so this was likely an easier shot.) Congratulations, Mitchell!

photoblogging: tree swallows

At last, a day without responsibilities—or at least none that couldn't be shirked. I drove down to Wagon Train Lake near Hickman, where a neighbor told me the black crappie were biting. Last night's cold front evidently put an end to that, but a confiding flock of tree swallows tempted me to stay and shoot some pictures.

My camera isn't really a good choice for bird photography—too slow, not enough zoom—and swallows in flight are a challenge under the best of circumstances. Nevertheless, I thought I had figured out a technique that would allow me to bring home a few crisply-focused close-ups of birds on the wing. Several chilly hours and two sets of batteries later...well, I guess I was wrong.

So let's just pretend that the out-of-focus shots were done that way on purpose, an artistic rendering to convey a sense of the birds' speed and the applicability of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to Tachycineta bicolor.

Journalism is dead...Long live journalism

This may be the single most gullible piece of "reporting" I've ever seen*, and I'm reluctant to boost MSNBC's page views, but this has to be seen to be disbelieved. Headline: "Did eaten songbird claw its way through hawk?" Answer: Most assuredly not.

A sharp-shinned hawk was found—alongside a highway, which would suggest cause and manner of death to most thinking people—with a passerine leg protruding from its ruptured crop. Julia Di Sieno of the Animal Rescue Team, who supposedly has worked with wildlife for more than 20 years, led some (including, apparently, reporters with the IQ of broccoli) to believe that the sharpie's prey had fought its way out of the hawk after being swallowed.

This from the MSNBC report: "Birds of prey, like sharp-shinned hawks, typically leave behind the legs and head of their avian meals, Di Sieno said." Really? This is news. I flew a passage sharpie at small birds for three seasons, and she typically ate the head first. In small bites. Then she ate the rest of the bird, again in small bites, before (usually) gulping the tarsi down whole.

The original report from Noozhawk (headline: "Last Supper: Eaten Bird Kills Diner") quotes Di Sieno as saying, "In order to move forward with the Animal Rescue Team mission we have two immediate needs. A dedicated animal ambulance for rescues ($30,000), and construction of a new fawn facility ($20,000)." I would suggest that a better use of funds might be remedial education in biology for staffers and volunteers. Maybe Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience.com, who wrote the piece on MSNBC, can sit in. Or maybe she should look for other work.

[*Incidentally, my previous favorite was from the first Persian Gulf War, when a large segment of the Iraqi Air Force fled to Iran. A CNN reporter asked an Iraqi official (it might have been Tariq Aziz, but I won't swear to that): "Mr. Ambassador, does Iraq have a secret deal with Iran?" Apart from the fact that the two states had recently fought a bitter war and were generally not on speaking terms, what did she expect? "Well, yes, we did have a secret deal to save our air force, but...wait, is that camera on?!? Oh, this will go badly for my family..."]

Pocket change, with marsupials!

• To commemorate ANZAC Day (it's already the 25th Down Under),
• to celebrate the return of my sweetie,
• and to fill some blogspace,

I'm sharing some Australian coins brought back by Susan.

From left to right:

• All show HM the Queen on the obverse ("heads") side.
• On the reverse ("tails") side, the 50-cent piece features an heraldic kangaroo and emu, smaller but easier to pick out on the older coin at top.
• The 20-cent piece has a lovely swimming platypus.
• Five kangaroos grace the 1-dollar coin.
• Finally, the 2-dollar coin depicts a bearded Aboriginal man, which I suppose makes it roughly the equivalent of a turn-of-the-last-century Indian-head penny or the somewhat later Indian-head/buffalo nickel here in the States.

My favourites here are the 20-cent platypus and 1-dollar kangaroos. They remind me of Canada's lovely coins, with their beautiful loons, caribou, beavers and maple leaves. It's a shame we don't have more (and more realistic) wildlife on U.S. coins and currency. A few of the state quarters have decent wildlife images, but otherwise the only realistic image in wide circulation is the flying bald eagle on the reverse of the Sacagawea 1-dollar coin.