Saturday, July 19, 2008

-- Saturday Entertainment --

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No Ivory-bill schtuff; just books, ducks, condors, storklets, and.... west coast news:

Another stop in a bookstore yesterday, and another wonderful find: Artist Charley Harper's "Birds and Words" (originally published in the 1970's) has been re-issued, full of Charley's uniquely minimalist and delightful bird art and short incisive verbal blurbs on each depicted bird. This book will bring a smile to most any birder, but also makes a fine introduction to birds for youngsters who can take delight in the artwork as well, while parents read and explain the wonderful short commentaries.

And for all the duck lovers out there, I have to pass this one along for heart-tugging enjoyment:

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/duck-darwin-awa.html

Hasn't been a lot of good news of late for endangered species, but somewhat positive outcome for the California Condor recovery efforts here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25724478/

To my surprise, stork youngsters are still hanging out in the nest here (German webcam), but probably not for much longer :

http://www.stadtpark-mannheim.de/webcam/cam33.htm



And finally, here's some satire(?) I could endorse:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BA7A11QU1S.DTL

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the condor story, but I will forevermore be skeptical about such stories after witnessing how the media--with the full cooperation of ornithologists--has distorted and misrepresented the ivorybill story.

Mike Collins

Anonymous said...

And a wave of my mousepad to Mike Collins as well . . .

There was some good news about protecting a certain four-legged critter out my way (although not in Utah; the second one that was trapped here was shot recently in Wyoming after being moved back there).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_sc/wolf_delisting_5

"Judge Restores Protection for Rockies Wolves"

A couple of years ago at a wildlife hearing here I made some comments about local ranchers being scared by stories of the big bad wolf when they were young . . . According to a friend of mine, it wound up being televised . . .

My fifteen minutes . . .

concolor1