Turns out that while you do need to watch (all) the carnivores, the herbivores (esp. in numbers) deserve some respect as well!
Picked this up from Greg Laden, who seems to be concerned that it’s a fake although I’m not sure why.
No tag for this post.Sunday night I was walking home around 10pm, and discovered a big tree limb had come down about a block from our house. Amazingly I could see, there in the pitch dark, that there was a full clutch of eggs lying cushioned and (apparently) unbroken amongst the shattered wood.
There had clearly been a large hollow space in the limb, which had probably been the weak spot where the limb gave in the high winds. A winged couple had set up house and home there, building a nest and laying at least seven or eight eggs. The hollow was also full of soft sawdust and such, presumably the product of the many critters that had made their homes there and contributed to the hollowing of the limb.
In the drop (which must have been at least 30-40 feet), the eggs came out of their nest, but were sufficiently cushioned that they remained largely intact. In the dark, in fact, they looked undamaged, although if you look at the large version of the pictures it’s clear that many were cracked. There was also one broken wide open on the sidewalk (although I suspect that might have been the work of an animal), and I saw another broken in the grass the next morning.
Suspecting that animals would scatter the scene overnight, I ran home, grabbed my camera, and went back to take some photos. Most were pretty awful - framing and focus in the nearly pitch dark isn’t my forte - but several provide a reasonable document of it all. It’s not exactly George Shiras, but it’ll do :-).
Here we have the clutch as I found them. I’ll try to post a few more later. Many of them are detail shots (since I like detail shots :->), but there’s also a shot or two with a little more context.
Note: I’m pretty sure this came down in the same storm that ripped off a big part of PeeZed’s old willow.
No tag for this post.I’m so behind on other people’s stuff on Flickr. I’ve been faving stuff now and then cause that doesn’t take as much energy as actually writing comments, and it turns out that I have two full mosaics worth of faves that I haven’t posted!
1. Watching the Detectives, 2. Auto portrait, 3. biscott’attitude, 4. Je Biscotte, 5. In a hurry, 6. pianimation19, 7. pianimation18, 8. Free-Style, 9. One more from the Storr, 10. let your light shine in, 11. Surreal but Real, 12. Goodnight, 13. Arise, 14. Mount Augustine After Jan 11 Eruption, 15. 100,000 Views!, 16. UP3985, 17. Zig Zag Zeeburg, 18. Look Sharp, 19. candle in the wind, 20. Jazz Hands, 21. Good Vibes, 22. let the music play, 23. It be’s that way sometimes, 24. A little tooth, 25. Windows not included, 26. killing time, 27. up, 28. Photo 9, 29. Pirhana attack!, 30. Tiger, 31. Leap, 32. Ramona at Full Speed Ahead!, 33. japonica, 34. the longest moment, 35. a trick of the light #4, 36. a trick of the light #1
No tag for this post.I’m so behind on other people’s stuff on Flickr. I’ve been faving stuff now and then cause that doesn’t take as much energy as actually writing comments, and it turns out that I have two full mosaics worth of faves that I haven’t posted!
1. droplets, 2. losing my religion, 3. dreaming, 4. shall I take that train?, 5. Quiet Night, 6. Trouble Brewing, 7. Granaries (Painted), 8. Liquid Deer (see the moving one too), 9. Japanese sunset, 10. Sanibel Bark, 11. Boston Harbor Dusk, 12. Great Wall of China (Dec 2004), 13. O’Hare, 14. Ostrich, 15. Feliz Páscoa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, 16. Yo quiero Easter Egg?, 17. make fun of the rain, 18. Panoramic sunrise view, 19. Orange Burst, 20. day 141: it’s still all about teeth., 21. Piano Lessons, 22. Thistle Pie, 23. Windows of the Mind, 24. Green Performer, 25. F, 26. O, 27. malicious code, 28. dolphins, 29. InternationalCollageExchange.no1, 30. Never Never Never, 31. She is GREAT, 32. The Lost Landscapes, Neither Here nor There, 33. Maple syrup, 34. I am done with photos!, 35. Untitled, 36. Gravity Flows
No tag for this post.Another shot from our visit to Pea Ridge at christmas.
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Nate Fortuna posted an interesting piece in my Social and Ethical Implications of Technology course on a modern version of the old idea of a “foundling wheel”. The original was something like a revolving wooden barrel, usually in the wall of a hospital or convent, where one could anonymously leave a baby to be cared for by others.
Now numerous hospitals in Europe have created modern equivalents, where one can anonymously leave a baby at a hospital. Instead of a wooden barrel, though, they now have heated cradles, respirators, and alarms that immediately notify emergency room personal.
It’s obviously deeply unfortunate that anyone would feel the need to abandon a child, but this is clearly a far better option than the steps of a church, a cardboard box in an alley, garbage bins, or worse.
Tags: technologyCory of Monkey River Town left a comment on this photo that got me going on something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about, namely the current and future status of radio (at least in the U.S.) and of KUMM (the student radio station here at UMM).
It’s pretty clear that radio in general, and KUMM in particular, is in a pretty weird place right now. With iPods, and podcasts, and XM why would anyone listen to live, local radio, especially the bland, commercial filled crap that dominates so much of the airwaves. When everyone was the captive of their cars or an inexpensive transistor radio, the current model worked pretty well. Now people have a huge array of choices, so it’s not clear how much longer they’ll keep listening to the lame stuff corporate radio keeps feeding them. They’re already leaving in droves (for example, and so far the suits haven’t been very creative in their responses (some are simply in denial).
As far as KUMM goes, I think the profile of listeners and (especially) DJs has changed enormously, and we’re still not at all sure what that means. 20 years ago, a milk crate of LPs was a pretty good sized music collection for a college student, and DJing at the radio station was a great way to access a vastly larger music collection than any student could afford (or find room to store!). Now, students have 50-100Gb of music on their hard drive and can’t find time to listen to a fraction of it all. When I started at KUMM in 1991, I was unusual in how much of my own music I brought in to the station (but I was old and had collected a lot over the years). Now I see shows where two or three DJs have laptops and iPods that they’re plugging in and playing from, and the only “station” music they’re playing is they’re required four songs from the official new music section every hour.
So why listen to KUMM? Why be a DJ on KUMM? Do we really care about upping our wattage so that people in Glenwood (and maybe Alexandria on a good day) can here us? Or is our real market in on-line broadcasting and (if we could sort out the permissions) podcasting specialty programs? My sense is that if we have a future, it’s online, but it’s unclear exactly what form that will take.
Thoughts?
Tags: technology
OK, it took forever, but thanks to the joys of Spring Break I finally found a few moments to clean the shelf with the dead bat bits stuck to it [earlier story][photos of said bat]. A huge thanks to all the people who left their suggestions as to how to sort out the problem both here and on PeeZed’s blog.
Goo Gone was the most common suggestion, so a trip was made to the local hardware store and said cleaner was acquired. And it worked beautifully! I dripped a little on, let it soak for a few minutes as per the instructions, and then wiped it off. It took a little rubbing in places, but it all came off, and without too much effort. There is much rejoicing!
Huge thanks too everyone who was kind enough to share their ideas, and especially to those who coveted the new character that our bookshelf had acquired. I’m sorry to say that the Goo Gone has completely removed that character without any markings on the wood whatsoever.
No tag for this post.Happily it begins tonight. Now I have to remember to balance the desire to sleep a lot and goof off on Flickr against the need to do grading and course prep and sorting out other things that need attending to.
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