Flyover Country

NFA field meet, January '12

2012-01-27T12:04:00.018-06:00

The meet was supposed to start with a slip at grouse at dawn on Saturday, but we got started late and were promised a chance at pheasant instead. When we got to the pheasant field, what did we see but a flock of grouse putting into a cornfield?

[Eric Johnson and Gunner]

Of course, when we ran in to flush the grouse...

...a couple of pheasant got up and one was promptly taken by Anita Johnson's gyr x peregrine, Riddick.

[Gunner gets a hug]

We (Jessica, Ellie and I—Jess took all the photos, by the way) missed a couple of flights: Chris Podraza's unfortunately-named redtail, Bubbles, and a Harris' hawk flown by Nick Morris. Had we known we would be the only ones flying Sunday morning, we might have made more of an effort to stay with the group, but as it turned out the rest of the meet belonged to Stekoa. He took a rabbit on Saturday afternoon and two more on Sunday morning.

[Maxine]

[Donna Vorce shows off her burr collection]

[Ellie picked up some burrs as well—actually we all did; at one point, we were scooping them up by the handful and throwing them at one another like snowballs.]

[Stekoa stoops into a cornfield—this was a miss, but both of his rabbits Sunday morning made the mistake of leaving the riparian woods and were taken in the corn stubble.]

photoblogging: Lincoln railway station

2012-01-16T11:14:00.015-06:00

Stekoa having caught a rabbit the day before, Jessica and I took an afternoon to shoot pictures at the train station downtown.

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy engine 710, built in Havelock—then (1901) a railroad town near Lincoln, now a neighborhood within Lincoln.

A modern successor rolls through.

De-evolution of the baggage cart: the older ones have so much more character.

I like the simplicity of the graphics on these old boxcars; they remind me somehow of fruit-crate labels or old WPA posters.

An assortment:

Cassowaries, and more of the world's most awfulest things

2012-01-11T12:30:00.017-06:00

Duncan Wright at 10,000 Birds has a nice essay on his native land of Australia, a wonderful place where everything is potentially out to get you:

“You don’t have to move far off the plane to step into the danger zone. Lurking in the suburban lawns of Sydney are the deadly Funnelweb Spiders. Sharks cruise off the city’s beaches, and just yesterday a deadly species of snake was found in a suburban railway station. Further afield, there is a poisonous mammal, the platypus, many waterways are filled with the carnivorous Saltwater Crocodile, and a species known as the box jellyfish is so dangerous that it causes the closure of every beach across the entire north of the continent for several months each year, an achievement that the sharks can only look at in wonder.”

RTWT.

Jessica's comment was, "God made Australia so that most of the world’s most awfulest things can be easily avoided."

Meanwhile, we're limited to just a few statistically insignificant wildlife hazards, like the odd mountain lion... [Sigh.]

I'll save you the trouble...here's the list from Wikipedia.

Ginger binger 3

2012-01-01T01:01:00.002-06:00

He's the colour of nutmeg and the heat of ginger.

—William Shakespeare, Henry V

A partial repost, with a few new additions (grouped together at the beginning and highlighted in red).

Exactly when and how the tradition started I no longer remember, but for years our family's New Year's Eve ritual was to stay up late, playing Monopoly and drinking ginger ale or ginger beer. My dad, whose usual beverage of choice was Coca-Cola, may have started this, or it may have originated with my grandfather, but in any case I have become the keeper of the flame and do my best to uphold the family tradition.

For the third year in a row, I have decided to throw caution to the wind, sample as many different brands and varieties as I could get hold of, and post tasting notes for the benefit of the ginger-loving public—or at least such of them as may read Flyover Country. I had the assistance of my daughter Ellie, who was out of town for the actual binge but sampled most of the new varieties at one point or another, and my fianceé, Jessica Farrell, who is a ginger enthusiast in her own right.

I have also been fortunate in this endeavour to have the assistance of Damian Barton, owner of Rocket Fizz, Lincoln's soda specialty shop. It's a good place to find "vintage-style" candy (clove-flavoured chewing gum, even!) as well as toys (for example, Jesus and Albert Einstein action figures), but carbonated beverages are their mainstay. I discovered several new brands here, and they carry several of my old favourites, which saved me an infinity of driving.

There are three basic types of ginger soda. Ginger beer (hereafter GB) is the most "authentic" (as with ethnic food, that can be a positive or negative attribute depending on one's tastes) and usually has the strongest ginger flavour. In its most traditional form it is brewed from a live culture of yeast and/or bacteria, but may also be produced with pressurized carbon dioxide as are, for example, most colas. Traditional GBs are cloudy, as small particles of chopped ginger root are suspended in the liquid; when artificial flavouring is used, artificial colouring will often be used as well to attain the cloudy GB appearance.

Golden ginger ale (GGA) is darker in colour than GB, but usually clear. Again, it may be either brewed or artificially carbonated, naturally or artificially flavoured, and may contain any of a variety of sweeteners. The ginger taste of a GGA is usually not as strong as that of a GB, but more pronounced than that of a dry ginger ale (DGA). DGAs are lighter in flavour as well as in colour, and are the most familiar to Americans, Canada Dry and Schweppes being representative brands. The most recently developed of the three ginger sodas, DGAs are much likelier to be artificially carbonated than brewed, but may contain any combination of flavour and sweetener types. As most readers will already be familiar with DGAs, I did not expend great effort to seek them out for the binge.

Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger be hot i' the mouth.

—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

On to the tasting notes...

NEW: Ale-8-One ("a late one") is described as "a Kentucky favorite since G.L. Wainscott blended the first batch in 1926". The label on the green-glass bottle references fruit flavour, but it was a bit too subtle for us; our overall impression was of a pretty standard, even bland, DGA.

NEW: Americana Honey Lime Ginger Ale shares rookie-of-the-year honours with Goose Island (reviewed below). The front label bears the legend "handcrafted—sweetened with pure cane sugar", along with a picture of a lime and a honey dipper, which briefly confused me. Never fear, it contain both, along with natural flavours. The brown glass bottle hides a unique pink-tinted soda, best appreciated when poured into a glass. Pronounced citrus taste, as one would expect.

NEW: Dream Lode Golden Ginger Ale is a bit of an enigma. The label tells a gold-rush story, but the drink is bottled in a Chicago suburb. And despite the name, it's a DGA, in fact an exceedingly pale one, not really a GGA. Nevertheless, it's pretty good, with good ginger flavour and notes of lemon. Carbonated water, cane sugar, natural and artificial flavours, in green glass.

NEW: Bedford's Ginger Ale is a West Coast entry, made in Port Angeles, Washington since 1984. It's spicy for a DGA, with peppery notes, and boasting an extraordinary quartz-like clarity. Carbonated water, cane sugar, and natural and artificial flavours in brown glass with a slightly hideous heraldic-style label in primary colours of green, red, and yellow. The drink is definitely better than the label.

NEW: Goose Island Spicy Ginger is a solid GGA, and an instant favourite with all of us. It's made by the Goose Island Brewing Co. in Chicago, so I assumed it would be brewed, but in fact it's made with artificially carbonated water. Still, in this case it doesn't hurt the taste, which includes real ginger flavour and pure cane sugar. Like most GGAs, it's in clear glass, this one with an attractive ginger-root label.

NEW: From Niagara Falls, New York and the mid-1930s comes Johnnie Ryan Ginger Ale ("First for Thirst"), a mild GGA nicely showed off in clear glass with a painted label. We tried hard to think of something else to say, but kept coming back to "mild". Essentially a DGA with GGA colour. Carbonated water, cane sugar, natural and artificial flavours.

AJ Stephans Jamaican Style Ginger Beer hails not from the Caribbean but from Boston, where the brand has apparently existed since 1926. At first glance, this looks authentic enough: brown glass bottle, GB cloudy to the point of being opaque, decent heat. But I can't help noticing that the label makes a big deal out of "pure sugar & pure water" without mentioning pure ginger. A glance at the ingredients list tends to confirm my suspicions: just "flavor", without reference to origin; I therefore assume that someone in Boston has been playing with their chemistry set. Overall, okay but not a standout (though my second impression was more favourable than my first).

Barritts Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer is from the Caribbean, specifically from Smith's Parish in, would you believe it, Bermuda. I usually prefer brown or green bottles to clear when it comes to GB, but I'll make an exception for Barritts since the drink itself is so marvellously opaque. A very good product, made with real sugar and natural and artificial flavour.

Blenheim Ginger Ale, I'm told, comes in several varieties, all in clear glass with a white-painted label (extra point for style!) bearing an American eagle-and-shield design. The one we sampled, with the pink bottle cap, is supposed to be the hottest, and indeed it was nicely spicy. The clear glass shows off the nice, almost crystalline, colour of this South Carolinian GGA. Sucrose, natural flavour. [UPDATE: I can now verify the gold-capped Blenheim is also quite good and, as expected, not as hot. Hardcore ginger fans will favour the pink cap; novices might want to go for the gold.]

Boylan Bottleworks Ginger Ale is a solid DGA with nice citrus notes. Made with cane sugar, bottled in green glass. The notation, "Registered 1891", refers to the company's origins: New Jersey pharmacist William Boylan's first soda was not a ginger ale but a birch beer.

Buderim Ginger Authentic Australian Ginger Brew is excellent. Slow-brewed using an open-kettle process, cane sugar, and locally-grown ginger (extra points for that), then bottled in brown glass with a kangaroo on the label. (I think there must be a law requiring that all Australian foodstuffs produced for export bear a marsupial on the label.) Good heat, but very smooth.

Bundaberg Australian Ginger Beer is another outstanding and very traditional GB. "Naturally brewed to be better", using cane sugar and ginger root—in fact, the label advises that the bottle be inverted before opening in order to get all the little bits of ginger back into suspension. It's a great little bottle, too, short but stout ("shrub bottle", I think I've heard it called?) in brown glass, with a unique peel-off cap and, of course, the obligatory kangaroo on the label. Unfortunately, my one "local" source (actually an hour away in Omaha) has gone out of business, so I'm hoarding my dwindling supply, but Rocket Fizz may be able to order it in. Cross fingers for me... [UPDATE: Now a regular item at Rocket Fizz. Thank you, Damian.]

Capt'n Eli's Ginger Beer, made by the Shipyard Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine, seems to have everything going for it: cane sugar, natural ginger flavour, brown glass bottle with a nautical scene on the label. But it's very clear, with mild spiciness at best. In fact, what it reminds me of most is a slightly punched-up Canada Dry. ("Not that there's anything wrong with that," he hastened to add.) A DGA sheep in wolf's clothing.

Cock 'n Bull Ginger Beer may sound like a drink brewed at a public house in Britain for centuries, but in fact it has been around only since 1946 and is named for the Cock 'n Bull Tavern in Hollywood, California. Furthermore, it seems to have been the inspiration for the original Moscow Mule cocktail. Quite good on its own, though, and with real sugar, natural flavour, and brown glass, it gets all the details right.

The DG in DG Genuine Jamaican Ginger Beer stands for Desnoes & Geddes, the makers of Red Stripe lager. Actually, DG started out in soft drinks and only later began brewing beer, so this might be a better candidate as a flagship product. In any case, it is a wonderful example of a Caribbean-style GB: cloudy with a fiery but smooth ginger bite. Made with Jamaican ginger extract (extra point for local ingredients) as well as natural and artificial flavours. Sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup—a concession, I suppose, to volume. Bottled in brown glass, but in a longneck bottle rather than the short bottle associated with Red Stripe. (Thanks to my brother Greg for sending a couple of these along.)

From the same brewer comes DG Old Jamaican Ginger Beer Twist. This one comes in a green glass bottle, the better to harmonise with the lime slices on the label. Quite a few GBs contain citrus flavour, but this one comes right out with it, and it's a refreshing difference. Still plenty spicy, as one would expect of a Jamaican GB. (Actually, my bottle says "Product of Canada", but it is bottled for a Jamaican company to their standards, so let's agree it's Jamaican.) No high-fructose corn syrup in this one; the label lists simply "sugar".

Dr. Brown's Original Ginger Ale is, as advertised, an "extra dry" DGA. Not a flavour standout, but it was one of the earliest kosher soft drinks. Easy to find in New York and Miami; elsewhere, try your nearest Jewish delicatessen. Natural ginger extract, either/or sweetening, green glass.

Dr. Tima Honey Ginger Ale is a DGA from California. And in case you missed the name, the honeycomb on the clear glass bottle's label highlights its claim to distinction, along with two textual reminders (both with exclamation points!) in addition to the ingredients listing. All natural, "from an old European recipe", this does have a bit of a citrus zing.

Empire Ginger Beer comes from the Empire Bottling Works in Bristol, Rhode Island. Made with pure cane sugar and "natural and/or artificial flavor extracts". The indecision strikes me as odd—perhaps it reflects seasonal availability of ingredients?—but this is a pretty good DGA. In a unique pale-green glass bottle, reminiscent in colour of some old Coke bottles.

Filbert's Old Time Quality Ginger Ale is distributed by the Filbert Root Beer Co. in Chicago. I hope their root beer is more distinctive. There's nothing really wrong with this one, but apart from its slightly darker colour, this is a garden-variety DGA. Sugar and/or corn sweetener—more indecision—with natural and artificial flavour in clear glass.

Jackson Ginger Beer is made by the Jackson Hole Soda Co. in Wyoming. Batch brewed with cane sugar and natural flavours, bottled in brown glass, all as nature intended. Pale, ever so slightly cloudy, good flavour without being noticeably hot. A mild GB, this might be a good stepping-stone for the GB-curious drinker more accustomed to DGAs.

I first bought Maine Root Ginger Brew, more or less out of desperation, on an occasion when my late lamented Bundaberg supplier was temporarily out of stock. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that this Yankee GB was actually a worthy substitute. Brewed, as the name implies, using real ginger extract and cane sugar—in fact, extra points for using fair-trade certified organic cane sugar! Great cloudiness, fine carbonation, great spicy flavour. In green glass rather than brown, but then nothing's perfect.

One drink I couldn't round up in time for the binge, but will review from memory, is Old Tyme Ginger Beer. The pirate on the label serves as fair warning regarding the take-no-prisoners style of this GB. Hot! Hot! Hot! There is good flavour here as well as grab-the-back-of-the-throat heat, but it may not be accessible to those who prefer a less fiery brew. Work up to this one...

In Atlanta, Georgia, in 1885, a soft drink with purported health benefits was the original product of what later became a more diverse company, and eventually one of the world's most recognised brands. Not this one, however. Unlike its neighbour and contemporary, Coca-Cola, Red Rock Golden Ginger Ale has remained relatively obscure, and in fact disappeared for several decades before being revived. It's fortunate that Red Rock has returned, for it lives up to the slogan "Just the Right Bite!" Carbonated water, pure cane sugar, natural flavour. A very good GGA, nicely presented, as the clear glass bottle with painted label (style point) highlights the clear, deep amber colour.

Reed's Original Ginger Brew is a Jamaican-style GGA brewed (key word) in Los Angeles. As the label on the green glass bottle notes, it is all-natural, with 25% fruit juice (pineapple, lemon, and lime) as well as fructose and fresh ginger root. Unsurprisingly, this one has a distinct citrus character to it; otherwise it is a GGA with DGA leanings.

Reed's Premium Ginger Brew is, by comparison, a GGA leaning toward GB. Also in green glass, with similar ingredients (the ginger content is identical) except for the sweeteners: Canadian white clover honey and raw cane sugar. Again, the 25% juice content gives it a genuine citrus taste.

Big brother to Reed's Original and Reed's Premium (closer to Original than Premium) is Reed's Extra Ginger Brew, which adds more ginger (did you guess?) and again tweaks the sweetening formula: fructose and honey (no information on origin) in addition to the standard one-quarter juice. Hotter, but definitely a GGA and not a GB. Like its siblings, a good drink that nevertheless suffers somewhat in comparison to the genuine Caribbean GBs.

By the way, Reed's also offers several fruit-flavoured GGAs: Reed's Cherry Ginger Brew, Reed's Raspberry Ginger Brew, and Reed's Spiced Apple Ginger Brew. Juice content varies from one to the next (anywhere from 20% to 60%), as do the ginger content and sweetening formula, which to me indicates a craftsman's approach as opposed to blindly throwing in new flavours and changing the labels. It is difficult, however, to make direct comparisons with the more traditional flavours—like apples and oranges, if you'll forgive the obvious play on words.

Next up is Regatta Authentic Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer. Regatta has a zesty character with strong notes of ginger and secondary notes of citrus, apple and banana. The finish has a ginger bite without the burn. Does this sound a bit too stereotypically food-critic-y? Sorry, it's a direct quote from the label, easily the wordiest in the lot. The label also mentions the use of GB in the Dark 'n Stormy ("Bermuda's National Drink") and the Moscow Mule, alcoholic concoctions I won't be mentioning again; our purpose here is to see how our GBs stand on their own. This, however, Regatta does quite well. Traditional GB cloudiness, Caribbean-style flavour but with a bit less bite than the Jamaican versions. Fructose, natural ginger extracts in green glass bottle. (This is Damian's favourite, by the way.)

Saranac Ginger Beer is made in Utica, New York, by the Matt Brewing Company, founded in 1888 as the West End Brewing Company. West End survived Prohibition by switching from beer to soft drinks, so presumably this ginger beer looms large in the Matt Brewing's corporate identity. It's a good one, too, uniquely smooth—almost like a cross between a GB and a cream soda. High-fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavours, in brown glass.

Sioux City Ginger Beer might be better classified as a GGA: darker in colour and stronger in taste than a DGA, but not cloudy like a traditional GB. Made with high-fructose corn syrup and natural flavour. Not really a standout, but pleasant enough, and as the Sioux City brand is widely distributed it has the virtue of being easily obtainable. My primary suggestion, should anyone from Sioux City ever happen to read this, concerns not the drink but the packaging: Re-work the bird on the label! I think it's supposed to be an eagle, but it's awfully hard to tell...

Sprecher's Ginger Ale hails from Glendale, Wisconsin, and comes in a stout 16-oz. brown glass bottle (as opposed to the 12-oz. servings of the competition) with a penguin-in-hell motif on the label. Ooookay... I would re-classify this as a GB, pale and slightly cloudy—honestly so, as it's made with real ginger. The fire-brewing process gives Sprecher's a very nice, fine carbonation readily discernible from its pressurized-CO2 counterparts. Interestingly, Sprecher's seem to have hedged their bets on the sweetener, as this GB contains both high-fructose corn syrup (boo!) and raw Wisconsin honey (yea! and bonus point for local ingredients). A very good ginger drink, and one that I find popping up in more and more places, even somewhat out-of-the-way places.

Squamscot Golden Ginger Ale from Conner Bottling Works in New Hampshire is apparently a very local brand, difficult to find outside the Granite State—which is a shame, because like Saranac it is unusually smooth. Thanks again, Rocket Fizz! Cane sugar, natural and artificial flavours, in clear glass.

Thomas Kemper Ginger Peach, like the fruitier offerings from Reed's, defies easy comparison with most of the other entries. (I'm sure Kemper has a standard GA, but somehow or other I missed it.) But I don't want to dismiss it too easily, because it stands well on its own. Brewed with cane sugar, peach juice, northwestern honey, and natural flavour; bottled in brown glass. Certainly fruity, almost feminine, but the ginger doesn't get lost. [UPDATE: Kemper does indeed have a standard GA, again in brown glass with natural ingredients. Good, as expected.]

Vernors bills itself as "The Original Ginger Soda—a Michigan Original Since 1866", and is in fact the oldest surviving American brand, but was not actually the first commercial GA in the States. It is, however, fairly widely distributed and was a frequent New Year's Eve selection when I was younger. While I have heard that Vernors is available in glass bottles, I've only ever found it in aluminum cans; presentation suffers somewhat accordingly. Still, an interesting GGA, aged in oaken barrels for three years, and with a unique note of vanilla. Made with a combination of natural and artificial flavours, as well as the high-fructose corn syrup you'd expect of a mass-produced brand (now owned by Dr. Pepper/Snapple). [UPDATE: The glass bottle is not just a rumour; Rocket Fizz now carries it!]

Zuberfizz Rasberry Ginger Ale is made in Colorado by the Durango Soda Co., known mainly for cane-sugar sodas. Had I read the label carefully enough, this one would have been disqualified before purchase—not because of the fruit flavouring, but because it is a "zero calorie soda" sweetened with "ZSweet" (erythritol, described as "a natural sweetener" but evidently highly derived). I had a hard time getting past the ZSweet aftertaste, but will concede that the raspberry bouquet (natural flavours throughout) was rather more delicate than expected. Otherwise, the most notable quality (not apparent in brown glass) is the exceedingly pale, almost watery appearance. Might be someone's favourite drink...and they're welcome to it. I'll pass from now on.

The one major shortcoming of this first [now third] annual ginger binge is that it didn't include any drinks from England, the historic home of GB. With that caveat, however, some regional observations: Australia (Buderim, Bundaberg) and the Caribbean (DG in either formulation, Regatta, Barritts) have the most consistently excellent GBs, with a couple of American entries (Maine Root, Sprecher's) breaking into the top tier. If the quality of ginger drinks from the States seems spotty, it should be borne in mind that there may be selection bias at work—Australia and the Caribbean could have their share of mediocre drinks as well, but those are far less likely to be imported to the States. And GB is, after all, an acquired taste for Americans, who are far more accustomed to DGAs and may find the very notion of a spicy soft drink unsettling. (This may also go some way toward explaining the identity crises posed by GAs labeled as GBs and vice-versa.) Still, the States can lay claim to some very good GGAs (Americana, Blenheim, Goose Island, Red Rock, Vernors) in addition to the two GBs cited above.

Well, it's been fun. Time for some sleep, and possibly a shot of insulin. : ) A happy New Year to all...

And had I but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread.

— Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost

Coming to a post office near you

2011-12-30T08:11:00.007-06:00

It's been a while since my last stamp post, but here's another. The USPS will be issuing these beauties, with artwork by Robert Giusti, on 20 January 2012 (which just happens to be my birthday). Click to embiggen.

Okay, the peregrine looks a bit hobby-ish to my eyes, and the depiction of the osprey could have been a bit more flattering, but I suspect most falconers and hawkwatchers won't complain too much.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T18:00:00.001-06:00

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grownups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

—Winston Churchill, 1941

Tea ceremony

2011-12-24T14:38:00.008-06:00

She might think it's laziness,
Or another manifestation of eccentricity,
But to her credit she says nothing
As the tags from teabags accumulate on the counter.
Lemon tea when her throat was sore,
Orange and spice with Chinese takeout;
Masala chai to get to work in the morning,
Earl Grey to unwind at night.
Irish Breakfast to celebrate her heritage,
English Breakfast for mine;
Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling.
Freed from their strings,
The little squares of coloured paper are like tickets,
Bringing the world to this little kitchen—
A world of sunny hillsides
& warm rain
& dark hands
& green leaves.
It might look like laziness,
But the tags are purpose-saved,
And one day I let them fly.
She doesn't like confetti
For the way it lingers,
Still turning up days or weeks or months later,
But her eyes sparkle as the tea tags flutter down about her head,
And she laughs in exasperated delight.
Of such small blessings

And such brief moments

Is a marriage in friendship made.

photoblogging: NSOC meet, December 2011

2011-12-04T20:01:00.010-06:00

For my friend, currently in California, who had to miss the snow-and-gravel cruise:

Vinyl makes them faster:

Rick's RS 2.5
Jesse's lifted WRX
Jon's swapped Impreza

Action shots:

Trevor's Alcyone SVX
Rick's RS 2.5 and Tank's Forester
Tank again
Not sure who this is, but that's not a mismatched bumper, it's masking tape

Going to the dogs:

Harper D.
Bayard wants to drive
Harp again, just because she's awesome

Saying goodbye to a friend:

Rick Schumacher, #186, who is moving to northern California
Just about everyone in the Nebraska Subaru Owners' Club has signed Rick's fender

Miscellaneous shots:

Nice wheels
Three Subarus in their natural habitat
One more of Harper, again because she's such an awesome dog

A happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T14:16:00.006-06:00

A purely personal note:

Bleak history notwithstanding (see below), I still believe Thanksgiving is very much worth observing, and should not necessarily be restricted to a single day in November. In my view, in fact, to give thanks is the only form of prayer that really has much validity or meaning. That's not to say, of course, that I never pray for strength or wisdom or luck, but when one asks for things from the powers that be...well, that can be a long wait for a ship that may not come. It seems to me, though, that anyone—regardless of their faith or spiritual traditions—may have cause to be grateful from time to time.

I wouldn't have believed it some months ago, but I find now that I have much to be thankful for. Most of the entries on my mental list are people, and many of them are readers of Flyover Country. I won't embarrass anyone by singling them out, and won't risk hurting anyone's feelings by leaving them out, so let me just say a general but very sincere thank-you to everyone who has offered their love and support, in person or at a distance.

Life is good, and looking better as time goes on, and I am truly thankful to be here.

Fifty-five years: a Thanksgiving story

2011-11-24T11:02:00.005-06:00

Every American knows the story, or thinks so at any rate. In 1620, religious dissenters from England sail to the New World in a small ship, Mayflower, find a natural harbor, and establish the new Plymouth Colony, where they hope to build a new life and worship freely according to their precepts. Half of the unprepared colonists die the first winter. Local Indians take pity on the colony, teach them to plant and fish, the colony takes hold, a great feast of thanksgiving is held, etc., etc. And the story is true, as far as it goes. Of course, it doesn't usually go very far.

Plymouth Colony was not hacked out of the wilderness, but built on the site of an abandoned Indian village known as Patuxet. Epidemics from Europe had spread through the Native populations in what was to become known as New England, greatly reducing Native numbers and depopulating Patuxet entirely. The English Pilgrims did not encounter a single Native until March of 1621.

That first Native was Samoset, not a local but a visiting Abenaki from the coast of what is now Maine. He had met Europeans before, fishermen, and greeted the startled Pilgrims with the words, "Welcome, Englishmen." He soon returned with an acquaintance, named Squanto, who possessed greater fluency in English and was a local. Born and raised in Patuxet, he had been kidnapped some seven years earlier by an English slaver and sold into bondage in Spain. Ransomed by Spanish monks, Squanto eventually made his way to England, befriended a wealthy merchant who taught him the language, and later took passage to Newfoundland. Returning south to his home village, he found Patuxet deserted and took up residence among the Wampanoags at their principal town, a place called Montaup.

It was Squanto who eventually stayed at Patuxet/Plymouth, gave the Pilgrims both seed corn and instruction on how to grow it, and shared his skills in hunting and fishing. It was also Squanto who introduced the English leader, John Carver, to the sachem of the Wampanoags: Usamequin, better known as Massasoit.

Massasoit was a man faced with a dilemma. Beset by disease and therefore weakened militarily, the Wampanoags and their neighbors had been losing ground to another local nation, the Narragansetts. But Squanto, who had lived amongst the whites in Europe, suggested that an alliance with Carver's Pilgrims might help the Wampanoags restore the balance of power. So Massasoit and Carver struck a treaty, each pledging to support the other if attacked by a third party.

With the successful harvest of 1621 came a three-day celebration, attended by all the surviving Pilgrims and about ninety of the Wampanoags. There was feasting (probably more venison than turkey, plus corn and other produce), prayer, footraces, wrestling matches, and quite possibly lacrosse games. The first Thanksgiving of legend...

Alas, the harmonious relations were not to last. Protected by the treaty with the Wampanoags, and with its food supply secured, the Plymouth Colony expanded over the years. Many Wampanoags were not entirely thrilled with the further concessions of land made by Massasoit. Worse, the colonists increased in arrogance as they increased in number. They were less interested in freedom of religion as an ideal than in freedom to exercise their religion, and impose it on their Native neighbors.

Massasoit died in 1662, and was succeeded as sachem by his son Wamsutta, known to the English colonists as Alexander. Wamsutta was far more skeptical and far less patient with the colonists than Massasoit had been, and after a year or so as sachem he was abruptly summoned to Plymouth by the Pilgrims. He fell ill, and died on his way back home to Montaup; many Wampanoags believed (and many of their descendants still do) that he had been poisoned.

Wamsutta was in turn succeeded by his younger brother Metacom; his English appellation was King Philip. Like Alexander, Philip was arrested and hauled off to Plymouth—several times—but apparently was clever enough to avoid being poisoned. While he cooperated with the colonists just enough to maintain his autonomy, he secretly began to organize resistance to the English, approaching even traditional Wampanoag enemies to build a coalition against the whites.

When, in 1675, the English hanged three Wampanoags, open hostilities broke out. The first engagements were spontaneous, taking even Philip by surprise, and soon the war spread beyond Massachusetts throughout New England. Settlers panicked, and even "accultured" Indians who had converted to Christianity were under suspicion; many were imprisoned in what amounted to concentration camps. Even the Narragansetts were drawn into the war, on the side of their former enemies the Wampanoags, after English settlers attacked a neutral Narragensett town and massacred its inhabitants.

Despite their early successes, the tide soon turned against the by-now outnumbered and more lightly armed Natives. In April of 1676, Canonchet, sachem of the Narragansetts, was captured and executed by an English firing squad. Soldiers captured Philip's wife and son in August of 1676; they were condemned by the Pilgrim clergy in Plymouth and sold into slavery in Bermuda. Shortly thereafter, Philip himself was killed an a brief fight at Montaup, his home village and long the center of Wampanoag power. That power no longer existed: by the end of "King Philip's War", fifty-five years after Massasoit and John Carver celebrated "the first Thanksgiving", almost all of the Native people in New England had been killed, sold into slavery, or exiled to Canada.

NFA field meet, October '11

2011-10-29T17:18:00.011-05:00

Not a typical meet, as warm weather and other factors prevented us from doing any actual hunting last weekend. We kited a couple of the falcons, did some manning and creance work with new hawks, and otherwise kicked back. I'll remember this meet for archery, knife-throwing, and Chinese checkers as much as anything. (Also the sugar- and creamer-packet fight with Kelly.) It was good to be back at the Schneidereit place after too many years away; good also to see that Ivan has a beautiful family and that this piece of land will remain a treasured family ranch for at least another generation.

Photos follow...

"Give Me Something"

2011-10-29T14:30:00.005-05:00

Unexpected

2011-10-24T21:48:00.005-05:00

The eyes of the doe are perfect.
Large, luminous, liquid, lovely,
they reflect the world through which she walks
and yet do not reflect the world's nature,
for they are perfect,
and the world is not.
The eyes are pools of beauty,
and even deeper is the spirit behind.
The spirit knows things the doe cannot.

Her sistren are apt to be taken down
by those who speed through the world unmindful
of their impact on the gentle and the sensitive
and the beautiful.
But the spirit guides her clear.
The wolves are long gone from these parts,
the cougars barely a rumour,
but never having seen them, she picks her way through the woods
still aware.
No way to tell, looking at those eyes
brimming with innocence and wisdom,
how many winters she's seen,
or if she's seen winter at all.
The spirit has seen them all.

And yet even the spirit can be taken by surprise.

Cupid is not flitting around
flashing his pink bottom at the world
and making the woods ring with childish laughter.
Cupid is up a tree,
quiet,
with paint on his face
and strips of rags hanging from his clothing
that move like leaves in the autumn wind.
And wary as she is
of wolf and cougar and all the hazards of the world,
not everything can be planned for.
And one day she will stand just so,
and the arrow may find its mark.

Trapping weekend

2011-09-26T08:00:00.019-05:00

The guiding concept for our expedition was simple: Trapping hawks is fun, but trapping hawks socially is even better. The strategy was not a whole lot more complicated: a western party led by Anita Johnson would meet up at Kearney and trap their way eastward, while an eastern band led by yours truly would start at Lincoln and trap our way westward—and if all went according to plan, we would meet up somewhere in the middle. So simple, even falconers can do it. There was only one worry: Even as Donna Vorce and I were planning this trip, we were aware that September is too early to expect to see many passage redtails. On the other hand, we reasoned, it doesn't take many if you can be confident of catching the few you do see. Long story short, we got lucky enough.

[A bird in the hand is better than...anything. My photo.]

One reason we scheduled the trip so early in the season is that NFA has several apprentices this year; the hope was that, if they took hawks this weekend, they might have them hunting in time for the NFA field meet a month from now. Well, the pressure is on now: Three apprentices were looking for birds this weekend, and by Sunday evening, all three had new redtails.

We trapped the first, a nice little tiercel, shortly before sunset on Saturday, and though it had been a long and unproductive day to that point, suddenly none of us felt tired. A moment of silence was observed for the pigeon that brought the tiercel to us. Then, as dusk fell and we loitered on the little-traveled rural road, visiting amongst ourselves and trading stories of the day's misadventures, a pair of killdeer, a flock of Canada geese, a bald eagle, and a coyote—all unseen but unmistakable—added to the sound of human conversation, and we were reminded how good it is to be outdoors on a glorious autumn evening.

[Dusk in the Platte River Valley. My photo.]

After dusk had turned to full-on darkness, the trapping parties went their separate ways. Anita, Doyle Daiss, and Chris Remmenga all had places to be, and so departed for their respective homes. Apprentices Caleb Schwartzkopf and Tyler Meitl headed for North Platte, set to trap again on Sunday with sponsor Art Graves. The rest of us (Donna, Pat Stull, my apprentice Amanda Kaufman, her sisters Cassie and Kelly, and me) drove to a nearby WMA, with Amanda's new tiercel hooded and trussed up in a nylon stocking. Upon arrival, Amanda and I put anklets and jesses on the hawk while Donna, Pat, and the girls set up camp.

There's something about camping—the movement necessitated by chores, the murmur of conversation, the ability to choose bright light or darkness or anything in between just by moving closer to or away from the fire—that is uniquely conducive to manning hawks. And if there's a more enjoyable setting in which to man a freshly-trapped hawk than by a campfire, surrounded by friends, I can't imagine what it would be. We snacked on apples and crackers and cheese and venison, we watched the sky, we talked late into the night, and we handled the tiercel, getting him accustomed to the sounds (and, briefly, sights) of camp life, easing him into his new world. Finally, in the small hours of the morning, we put the newly-named Azazel in his box, unrolled our sleeping bags beneath an impossibly clear sky shotgunned with stars, drifted off to the soft trilling of a screech-owl, and slept the sound sleep of the contented and exhausted.

[A girl and her hawk: Amanda with Azazel. My photo.]

The next morning we awoke to a kingfisher rattling through our camp and two ospreys gliding overhead. Azazel got some more manning time, Pat and Donna went on a coffee run, and we unhurriedly broke camp. Doyle rejoined us for a couple hours of desultory "trapping", if it can be called that when we caught nothing, and then we all headed home. Elsewhere, Art's group was still at it: Caleb trapped a female redtail on a pigeon harness Sunday morning, and Tyler scored a tiercel on a bal-chatri Sunday evening—again, in the last moments of daylight.

So, a success if not a rousing success: Three hawks sought, three hawks caught, and a good time had by all. Donna and Doyle will be out trapping again in a couple of weeks when their schedules are more conducive to training. If I join them, I'll post that up as well. Meanwhile, we're already discussing making this trip "the first annual". We might shoot for later in the season, we might add some different trapping styles to our repertoire, but for certain we'll be doing this again.

[Taking my turn with the manning. Photo by Pat.]

The camping group. L-R: Donna, Amanda with Azazel, Mark, Cassie, Pat, Kelly. Photo by Pat.]

[Azazel. Photo by Pat Stull.]

"So. Central Rain"

2011-09-21T13:34:00.005-05:00

R.E.M. have left the building.

The band broke up today.

Here's a nice version of what may be my favourite R.E.M. song:

The correct pronunciation, if you happen to be wondering, is "Southern Central Rain".

Stellaluna and Wilbur will kill us all: a review of Contagion

2011-09-18T20:07:00.018-05:00

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that (when time permits) I read a lot of books on science. My friends are, however, sometimes surprised by my collection of "scary disease books". I have books on plague, books on smallpox, books on Ebola. Sensational popular science writing like Richard Preston's The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer, insightful memoirs by noted virologists like Joe McCormick and C.J. Peters, historical analyses like Scourge and Justinian's Flea. The one I go back to over and over again, though, is Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague, an engagingly-written, exhaustively-documented overview of the field of emerging diseases.

The Coming Plague addresses not just emerging diseases and the microbes that cause them, but often the ecological circumstances that lead to a zoonotic outbreak. For example:

A political revolution isolates a region devoted primarily to ranching from its usual markets. Out of necessity, the ranchers become farmers, clearing and plowing land to grow crops for which they had previously traded. A formerly uncommon mouse, its original habitat disrupted but suddenly presented with a superabundance of food in the form of corn, increases greatly in numbers and begins to live commensally near humans. The mouse sheds a virus in its urine, and half the people in town become infected through eating contaminated food or breathing in dust from swept floors; half of those people die bleeding. This is Machupo, or Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.
After several years of drought in the already dry Four Corners area in the southwestern United States, a winter of heavy snowfall brings an infusion of moisture. The following spring and summer, vegetation rebounds, and piñon trees take the opportunity to produce a large seed crop. Deer mouse populations explode due to the sudden abundance of food, and as in Bolivia the mice increasingly come into contact with humans, shedding virus in their urine. Again, people die, this time gasping. This is Sìn Nombre or Muerto Canyon virus, a previously unknown hantavirus that causes acute respiratory distress syndrome.
The practice of hunting primates for bushmeat allows a virus from infected chimpanzees to enter human hunters or butchers, probably on several different occasions at different times and places. The chimpanzee virus adapts to its human hosts, becoming a new species (or two) in the process. The construction of a transcontinental highway and an attendant increase in travel, prostitution, and intravenous drug use allow the virus to expand its range beyond central Africa. People die rotting, unable to fight off viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. This is HIV and the global AIDS pandemic.

Varied and wondrous are the diseases in The Coming Plague. Some are widely known, and widely feared, by the general public. Others are widely known but taken all too casually. And still others are obscure, perhaps mercifully so. There exist, for example, a herpes virus found in squirrel monkeys, and another in spider monkeys, that seem to do their hosts no harm whatsoever. But when these viruses are transmitted to Old World primates, they trigger devastatingly lethal leukemias and lymphomas. Not scary enough for you? Okay...but these cancer-causing viruses are airborne.

* * *

So I was anxious to see the new Steven Soderbergh movie Contagion, but also a bit apprehensive that it might disappoint me, that it might get the science wrong or gloss over the science altogether. I'm happy to report that Contagion does not disappoint. Like The Coming Plague (it turns out that Laurie Garrett was a consultant on the movie), it tells a very scary story without sensationalizing it.

Basic plot summary: Scattered individuals fall ill with what appears to be a respiratory infection but rapidly escalates to meningitis or encephalitis. These isolated illnesses develop into clusters, which grow into a global pandemic. Mayhem ensues. The movie follows a few patients, as well as doctors from the CDC and WHO and others struggling to avert, understand, and ultimately survive the emerging crisis.

On both an individual and societal level, the film gets human nature right. An excellent cast helps: the big names are Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Elliott Gould, and Jude Law, but many other fine actors breathe life into believable and variably sympathetic characters. No mustache-twirling villains here; the closest approach is Law's character, a blogger ("six million hits a day") with a penchant for conspiracy theory who is not immune to corruption, but he seems to be more self-deluded and opportunistic than willfully evil.

Likewise, the public-health worker (played by Chin Han) who conspires to abduct a colleague from the WHO (Marion Cotillard) has a reasonable and sympathetic motive: a hostage from among the world's medical elite makes it less likely that his village will be overlooked if and when a vaccine or treatment is developed.

The most despicable character is actually Paltrow's philandering patient zero, but while her misconduct does give the virus additional opportunity to spread, her benign conduct is just as destructive. This raises the point that, while the virus is certainly the major antagonist in the film, it is not really a villain in the usual sense. A virus lacks any sort of consciousness, knows nothing and cares nothing of human concerns. Terrifying in its effects, it is nevertheless not malevolent, it just is—life (or proto-life) at its most basic, replicating itself and incidentally leaving destruction in its wake, facilitated by the frequent contact within dense human populations and the ease and ubiquity of global travel.

I went into the movie looking for errors. Happily, I didn't find any. I'm just an interested layman, of course, but as far as I could tell, all the virology and epidemiology was spot on. The specific virus depicted in the movie (MEV-1) is entirely plausible, enough so that "hypothetical" seems a better descriptor than "fictional".

The film's commitment to realism extends to dialogue in which doctors talk to other doctors like doctors. A lesser movie, for example, might include a line such as "We should isolate the patients with higher fevers; they may be more contagious." Obviously another doctor would know this, and so the line is intended as explanatory dialogue for the audience. In Contagion the line is "Put the more febrile patients down here"—no explanation necessary for medical personnel, and so none given to the audience, who may or may not have "febrile" in their working vocabularies. When explanatory dialogue is included, it's always in a believable context: for example, the EIS officer defining R⁰ ("R-naught", a measure of transmissibility) to bureaucrats in a state health agency who are clearly not themselves epidemiologists—they are considering postponing the declaration of a state of emergency because it might adversely affect holiday shopping.

The drama in the film is never overplayed. Plenty of people, including major characters, die in the movie, but Soderbergh stays away from the usual format: a close-up shot of the patient, loved ones in emotional anguish nearby, sad violin music playing just in case we were about to miss the point. Contagion shows death more matter-of-factly, and more starkly: a delirious patient staggering into the road and being hit by a truck; a child left alone and found unblinking and lifeless in his bed; a doctor, discovering that she has contracted the disease, arranging for her contacts to be traced in one scene, and encased in a body bag, about to be interred in a mass grave, in the next. Combined with Soderbergh's refusal to dumb down the dialogue, this approach gives Contagion the gravitas of a documentary without making it any less a thriller.

Ultimately, the scariness of Contagion lies specifically in its realism. It is, in a sense, the opposite of The Andromeda Strain, which offers an easy deal: suspend your disbelief for as long as it takes to read the book or watch the movie, in exchange for some dramatic tension. This film is a wake-up call: Steven Soderbergh, Laurie Garrett, and the other people involved in making Contagion are using dramatic tension to try to dispel disbelief. The next big disease that will threaten humanity's existence, or at least life as we know it, is not an exotic life-form from outer space, waiting to hitch-hike on a probe returning to earth. It's here already. EVF-1, or something like it, is just waiting for a small ecological change to unleash hell on earth. The message of The Coming Plague, and of Contagion, is that it's not a question of if, but when.

Blue Angels

2011-09-11T20:06:00.004-05:00

E II R

2011-08-09T13:44:00.022-05:00

Pendleton is the best-known marketer of trade blankets in the States, but credit for the creation of the blanket trade must go to "Canada's Merchants", the Hudson's Bay Company. Chartered in England in 1670 and headquartered at York Factory (now in Manitoba, but originally the commercial capital of Rupert's Land), HBC was established to compete with French fur traders and served for a time as the de facto government of British North America.

Along with firearms, cookware, beads, etc., European fur traders often paid their Native and Métis suppliers in wool blankets. The iconic HBC product is the "multistripe" or "candy-stripe" blanket, a white point blanket with headers in "Queen Anne's colours" of green, red, yellow, and indigo—although other blanket-makers (including Pendleton) copied this design, so closely is it associated with Hudson's Bay that stripes in those colours have been incorporated into the modern company's logos. Nevertheless, HBC point blankets were and are made in a variety of other colours, some of which have changed with the whims of fashion while others (notably red, green, and blue) have remained constant or nearly so.

The blanket below, royal purple with white points and headers, is a one-off design, made only in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II. It is consequently among the rarest of the 20th-century Hudson's Bay blankets, and to my mind one of the very prettiest.

[Label]

[Another regal personage]

Word has just come down, incidentally, that the Canadian Forces are reverting to their old names: Maritime Command will once again be known as the Royal Canadian Navy, Air Command will once again be the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Land Force Command will be simply the Canadian Army. Defence Minister Peter Mackay intended the renaming as a nod to the services' "proud history and traditions", but Canadian republicans have derided the move as "abject colonialism". [Links to BBC and CBC.] A reminder, either way, that among Elizabeth's titles is Queen of Canada.

[Link to the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska. Among their artifacts: the oldest known surviving point blanket.]

An observation

2011-07-30T13:15:00.005-05:00

Of all the things you wouldn't want to fall out of your kitchen cabinet, to deflect off the countertop and shatter on the floor...

...a large glass bottle of Karo syrup would have to be near the top of the list.

Particularly if the floor was already strewn with spilled bird seed.

First love in second growth

2011-07-11T11:48:00.013-05:00

Emma Maris has a nice post over at The Last Word On Nothing entitled "Coming of Age in a Trash Forest", about secondary forest contrasted with "The Big Pristine". RTWT, but the final paragraph is the one that really got me:

My unscientific guess is that upwards of 80% of ecologists and conservationists first learned to love nature in places that weren’t pure, pristine or wild: culverts in cul de sacs, empty lots, summer camps on formerly logged land, hedgerows and the weedy margins of agricultural fields. We loved them as kids, and now we are learning to love them again as scientists and environmentalists. It is a kind of homecoming.

I'm definitely an eighty-percenter. Most of my childhood was spent in the decidedly more rural environs of Loch Raven, but the first piece of ground to attract my attention as a young naturalist was in Catonsville, Maryland, on a street named for a long-defunct convent which, I suspect, left the neighborhood poorer for its absence. This was a long-settled and densely-populated area that was entering a period of decline. (When I returned years later with childhood friend Joann Grimes, we discovered that, apart from everything being smaller than we had remembered, the lane had made the slide from "somewhat sketchy" to a decidedly Not Good Neighborhood.) Across the street were quad-style apartment buildings, but ours was a Baltimore-style rowhouse, albeit without the marble steps.

Rowhouse residents parked in an alley behind the elongated building; the car I remember best was "Uncle" Carmine's (my friend Cindy's uncle, but he was Uncle Carmine to every kid on the block) Chevrolet Vega, distinguished by its bumper sticker: "You toucha my car, I breaka you face." (With Carmine, at least, the threat of violence could be taken as a joke.) But beyond the dusty gravel of the alley and up a red-clay embankment lay "the woods".

The woods, along with a small meadow on the other side, were the only "wild lands" accessible to the kids of the neighborhood. Here were built innumerable tree-forts, which lasted until blown apart by summer thunderstorms, pulled down by winter snowfall, or (most often) cannibalized to built bigger and better forts.* Here we could play at Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, though in retrospect I doubt many of the neighbor kids were literarily inclined. And here, just a stone's throw from my back door, was Nature itself—not just pictures in a field guide, but actual living things that made field guides worth carrying around.

Rank and weedy as they were, the woods tasted fine. There were honeysuckle vines (one of which, on an isolated section of chain-link fence that marked an abandoned right-of-way connecting to the alley, Bobby Quigley and I accidentally set alight with percussion caps one autumn day), blackberry tangles, and abundant mulberry trees. I'm sure many adults would have welcomed the demise of the neighborhood's mulberry trees (as long as it required little or no effort on their part), for the berries left purple stains on everything: cars, sidewalks, laundry hung out to dry, and quite often the faces of their progeny. But to a kid, the stains are worthwhile: nothing beats the taste of sun-warmed, bordering-on-overripe mulberries fresh from the tree in which you are perched watching the birds.

And snakes. The woods were home to a few black rat snakes (Elaphe obsoleta in the books I grew up with, though I see the species has now been renamed Pantherophis obsoletus) and abundant eastern garter snakes (Thamnophis s. sirtalis). I kept both of those, but my favorites were the diminutive Dekay's snakes (Storeria dekayi) and even more delicate, even more exquisite ringnecks (Diadophis punctatus). I never kept any of them for long, and some of them not even as long as I intended, for the Dekay's in particular were talented escape artists. My little brother had a collection of rubber snakes, lizards, and turtles, and as I recall it was one of my prodigal Dekay's that startled my mom late one night as she was picking up after Greg in the basement. I was awakened by my dad to remove the not-rubber-after-all snake, but he had a hard time concealing his amusement.

Berries and birds and snakes were everyday finds, but once I got really lucky and found a fossil on the edge of the woods: a chunk of mudstone covered with scallop impressions—Chesapecten, I've always assumed. (I still have it somewhere, and will post a picture later if I can remember which box it's in.) For a typically dinosaur-besotted little boy, this was a red-letter day. It wasn't Montana or Utah or Mongolia, just the inner suburbs of Baltimore, but my woods had fossils!

[Found it!]

As far as I know, the woods are still there. My parents bought into the rowhouse for $15,000, give or take, about 1971; the unit next door was recently sold for something between $175,000 and $185,000 (thank you, Internet!). I'm not sure if that represents a neighborhood renaissance, an overheated mid-Atlantic housing market, or simply forty years of inflation, but I'd be willing to bet the woods are still weedy and at least as litter-strewn as when I was a kid. And I'd be equally willing to bet there are still birds and snakes and maybe even fossils waiting to be found there. What I don't know, in this age of nature-deficit disorder, is whether there are still kids who get off the couch (thanks again, Internet, and video games, and cell phones...) and explore those woods. No bet this time, but I sure hope there are.

* Quote from Emma Maris: "The nice thing about secondary forest is you can pound nails into it." I considered making this the title of my post.

Wings over Wimbledon

2011-06-29T07:54:00.005-05:00

Hawking-for-hire: It's not just for airports and orchards anymore, as this BBC report indicates. The All-England Tennis Club has engaged a Harris' hawk to keep pigeons off the courts during the Wimbledon tournament.

Subaru flip book

2011-06-25T12:07:00.008-05:00

Okay, the giant mechanical spider is a bit cheesy, but the film technique in this Subaru Canada advertisement (by ad agency DDB Canada and Starz Animation) is creative, eh?

This was shot at Cayuga Speedway near Toronto, with the camera car zooming past 760 frames of animation to generate the kineographic effect. The image floats around a bit as the car accelerates, but then holds steady and in-focus as the driver maintains a precise speed and distance from the wall. Here's the making-of-the-video video:

Special bonus: This film, also by DDB for Subaru, will bring back memories for a few people who have been with me without a hawk in the car. Right, Ev?

Gyrfalcon miscellany

2011-06-21T07:29:00.007-05:00

Just a few quick links:

From BBC Nature, this report on gyrs (east Greenland gyrs, anyway) as "secret seabirds", spending much of the winter on ice floes in the open ocean. While it has long been known that gyrs in coastal areas prey on seabirds, the species as a whole is considered to be dependent on ptarmigan—their ranges (omitting the new data from Kurt Burnham and Ian Newton) are almost entirely co-extensive. Apparently, however, some gyrs may specialize in seabirds year-round, not just when they are concentrated at rookeries during the breeding season.

Speaking of gyrs and ptarmigan, The Peregrine Fund hosted a conference last year on how climate change might affect the gyr and its prey species. This link is essentially an announcement of the conference, but I'm hoping it will eventually be updated to include the proceedings.

And here is the best of several gyrfalcon posts by Clare Kines at his blog, The House and other Arctic musings, which I am duly adding to my blogroll. HT Luisa at Lassie, Get Help.

Update: HT Steve at Querencia for reminding me of this story (BBC Nature again) on an ancient gyrfalcon eyrie.

The wild downtown

2011-06-17T16:55:00.019-05:00

In a recent column in the Lincoln Journal Star, local historian Jim McKee noted that Lincoln's first high school, built in 1870, was considered by some parents to be too remote. The worries: grassland fires and bear attacks. The Pershing Auditorium now occupies that site, on Centennial Mall (as that segment of 15th Street is called) between M and N Streets, in the heart of what is now considered downtown Lincoln. There has been much discussion about tearing down the Pershing, which is showing its age and about to be made redundant by a new civic center, but no one worries much about grizzly bears or "the red buffalo" anymore.

On the other hand, the downtown area does have some patches of green. Some of the little sidewalk oases are full of roses and tulips and the like, but more than a few utilize native grasses (notably side-oats grama and prairie dropseed) and wildflowers. These I especially appreciate, as I've recently started working downtown. Although I've had jobs that took me downtown (Baltimore and Atlanta) on a regular basis, never before have I actually worked in a downtown high-rise building, and it's taken some getting used to; the little squares of prairie grass (like the peregrines soaring overhead) help to make the concrete canyons tolerable.

[Outside the Great Plains Center, Seaman the bronze Newfoundland waits patiently among native grasses while bronze Lewis and bronze Clark get directions from a bronze Otoe man. The Jefferson medal (originally in bronze) is a nice touch, don't you think?]

The urban environment presents unique challenges, but the folks who manage these little spots deal with the same fundamental paradox that confronts farmers, gardeners, and land managers everywhere else: the simultaneous difficulty of getting some things to grow and other things not to grow. I'll admit to having surreptitiously yanked a couple of weeds out of the ground myself: most pedestrians wouldn't recognize prickly lettuce or western salsify or common purslane growing among the prairie plants, and wouldn't much care if they did, but their presence offends me. While the concept of "ecosystem integrity" is essentially meaningless when applied to such tiny patches of "prairie", there's an aesthetic consideration I find it difficult to ignore.

One neat spot I've discovered recently is this "green roof", planted by the Arbor Day Foundation (which has its headquarters in Lincoln) and visible from the patio of the Qdoba restaurant next door:

This garden [more here] is a work in progress (I was having lunch at Qdoba a couple of weeks ago when some of these plants were being installed, but of course didn't have my camera with me that day) and I'll be interested to see how it develops. These are, presumably, tough little plants for a tough environment. If this garden helps reduce the thermal extremes on this building, well and good; if it inspires other organizations to do the same, even better; but it's already helping by softening the edges of the city for people like me.

Related post: In the city

Must go faster

2011-06-11T19:56:00.002-05:00

New kid in town

2011-06-08T21:37:00.016-05:00

Posted by request...

Karl Linderholm, Mitchell Renteria and I, along with Janet Stander from Raptor Recovery Nebraska, spent some time at the state Capitol building yesterday, assisting with the processing of an eyas peregrine. The little tiercel was fitted with an official USGS band as well as a marker band (98/M, if I remember correctly) and then had some blood drawn before being sprayed for ectoparasites.

[Yours truly with eyas and the gorgeous Lauren Dinan from the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission staff. Photo by Gwyneth Roberts/Lincoln Journal Star.]

Three eggs were produced this year, and at least two hatched, but 98/M is the only one to have survived to three weeks. (Karl happened to be watching the webcam early one morning after a violent storm and saw the adult falcon carrying the body of a dead eyas away from the nestbox, an evident victim of exposure despite the falcon's best efforts.) As I told JoAnne Young from the Lincoln Journal Star [link], being an "only child" in a peregrine eyrie has both advantages and disadvantages: no competition for food resources, but on the other hand no siblings with whom to develop advanced flying skills; I sometimes—but fortunately not yesterday—call this the "Top Gun" effect. With first-year mortality rates in the 65-75% range, it's just about impossible to say which will be more important, but my suspicion is that the loss of his sibling(s) before fledging is likely to weigh in on the negative side for this little guy.

[A Top Gun graduate: the adult tiercel. Photo by Game & Parks biologist Joel Jorgensen.]

Catch of the day

2011-05-27T09:53:00.006-05:00

Two fishing trips last week: I did well on Wednesday, then on Saturday Ellie showed her friend Amelia and me how it's done while we caught next to nothing. Oh, well, at least there was enough at the end of the day for a good dinner. I've decided to post my recipe for broiled rainbow trout, more so people will know I'm still alive and well than because they need a recipe...though it is a good one.

I cook my trout sans head, but leaving the tail on—done right, it ends up deliciously crispy. A plain cookie sheet works, but I like to line it with aluminum foil in the interest of easier cleanup; either way, it's important to make sure the cooking surface is well greased with butter. I splash the fish with citrus juice—sometimes lemon, sometimes Key lime, sometimes a mixture of the two—then add spices: sea salt, lemon pepper, grated orange peel (dried or fresh), and paprika. For presentation purposes, the paprika is applied in a narrow band over the pink stripe on the side of the trout; together with the "spots" of lemon pepper, this approximates the natural appearance of the fish. (I was accused of "art", but make no such claims myself; just a small gesture toward honoring the quarry.)

An oven temperature of 450° or 475° will do the trick; I don't really time it, just watch until it looks done, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 minutes. Serve with grits and a sweet German riesling...

Barrier islands

2011-04-18T18:06:00.006-05:00

The beach on Fenwick Island is worth billions of dollars and costs billions, but the one on Assateague is free and priceless.

Anyone who loves the Eastern Shore, or wants to learn just a little, should read "Three Stooges vs. Revelation" over at The Last Word On Nothing. It might help to know that Fenwick Island = Ocean City, and that "down the ocean" in Bawlamerese sounds more or less like "Danny Ocean". This essay explains why I have always preferred Assateague to Ocean City...so well that I wish I had written it. I'll have to settle for a link. RTWT.

That's one way to get ahead...

2011-04-16T08:00:00.005-05:00

Libya's Muammar al-Qadhafi (pick your own transliteration) has been in the news quite a bit lately: Here he is (in a very restrained powder-blue uniform) celebrating the 40th anniversary of the coup d'etat that brought him to power...

...which reminds me of a story.

One of my military science instructors was a salty, very senior NCO I'll call "SGM Carter" (not his real name). Carter was a Green Beret who had made many HALO drops and had been awarded the Purple Heart numerous times in Vietnam. He also had extensive experience working with military units from other countries, and one day he happened to mention that among the foreign soldiers he had trained was a young Libyan named Muammar al-Qadhafi. So I asked him, somewhat impertinently, "Sergeant Major, this guy is a dictator. He could be General Qadhafi, or Generalissimo Qadhafi, or Field Marshal Qadhafi...why Colonel Qadhafi?"

Carter growled back at me: "Colonel's a pretty healthy promotion, considering he was a goddamned staff sergeant when he took over the country."

[Other sources have him as a captain at the time of the coup, but it's still a good story.]

Dark night of the soul

2011-04-12T19:59:00.007-05:00

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

—Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

At the risk of making this personal blog too personal, and as much as I'd like to avoid the subject altogether, Jefferson's point is as valid with regard to individual persons as to collective peoples. So, a few words on my current situation.

My marriage was, for many years, a good one. There was love, and humour, and friendship, and of course a beautiful, wonderful child. But, as the years went on, there was also mental illness. There was distance, and despair, and ultimately there was betrayal. And so on Valentine's Day, when so many couples were celebrating their relationships, I was consulting an attorney, seeking to dissolve a marriage I had hoped would never end.

This is one of those times when "being a writer" (whatever that means) is no help, because words are simply not adequate to describe the shock, the hurt, the anger, the sadness, the anxiety. All I can say is that this has been an interesting experience, of the sort I would not wish on my previous worst enemy. In the last two months, I have questioned everything I ever believed, including things I knew for certain to be true. I have made several plans to take my own life, not because of any inherently self-destructive tendencies but, paradoxically, out of a sense of self-preservation, a desire to limit my suffering. If there's a silver lining to existential crisis, it's this: I have been finding out who my friends are—and who they aren't.

I'm happy to report that thus far I have resisted both nihilism and suicide, re-examined and ultimately reaffirmed my beliefs and my values, and even nurtured a hope that I might be able to build a new life for myself and my daughter. The first stirrings of that hope—grim determination might have been a better description—are what led me to contact a lawyer, to begin planning for a life after my marriage. I don't yet know what that life will look like, and anxiety for the future vies for attention daily with a dozen other kinds of pain, but I'm looking ahead. Every day is different, but in general the trend is upward. And that will have to be enough for now.

I hope to be writing again and back on topic soon...

Local birds make good

2011-04-07T13:13:00.004-05:00

The Lincoln Journal Star reported earlier this week [full article here] that two of Lincoln's own peregrines have taken up residence on the Westar Energy building in Topeka, Kansas. The tiercel is Boreas, fledged from the Capitol building in 2007—I have written about the "Four Winds" clutch [link], and I'd like to think he is the one I witnessed catching a bat in the Capitol spotlights. The falcon is Nemaha, from the 2009 "Rivers" brood.

There is a camera at the Westar eyrie [link]; select "side cam" and follow the log-in instructions provided. (The "front cam" icon links to an archived video.) Nemaha is apparently on eggs right now. Over 800 videos from the Westar cameras have been posted on YouTube. Most are of the previous pair, Doorly and Hope, both of whom were hatched on the Woodmen Tower in Omaha (1999 and 2002, respectively), and who were evicted by the newcomers from Lincoln.

Dombra and goldens

2011-03-02T19:13:00.004-06:00

HT Steve.

Mar-hawk

2011-02-14T18:50:00.007-06:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything about my merlin, Wakulla, and for good reason—I last attempted to fly her in late November. The behavioral conversion I described back in October:

At some point in the course of her rehabilitation, training, and moult, my "passage" merlin (trapped inside a building for a week without food) had undergone a reversion in behavior, acting like an eyas—a screaming eyas at that, so I hardly ever get to see the relaxed-merlin posture: as soon as I walk in the room, she starts screaming for food; once she finally gets it, she clutches it and mantles over it and continues screaming between bites. It's noisy, painfully noisy...

...never ameliorated. All screaming, all the time. Worse yet, she refused—or, more often, flew half-heartedly—almost every slip I could produce for her, whether from the car or in the field. As I had discovered in her all-too-brief first season, she would turn herself inside-out to chase bobwhite quail, but she was so wedded to this one quarry (of which we don't have many, especially after last year's brutal winter and wet spring) that she wouldn't even chase yellow-breasted pasture quail (a.k.a. meadowlarks) when they presented themselves, never mind sparrows or starlings. (For the record, meadowlarks are not intentional quarry for legal reasons, but they do turn up in some of the same habitats as game species, and incidental flights are normally to be expected.)

Not a viable gamehawk, then, and not a good candidate for release to the wild, either. And any hopes I might have had about working through her problems were dashed by a drastic change in my personal situation. (Later.) I simply didn't have the time or energy to devote to her, even if I could have devised a plan. And so she languished on her perch while I attempted to deal with my changing circumstances—and beat myself up over my failure, for I had let her down, had saved her from starvation only to condemn her to perpetual confinement.

Finally, with help from a friend in Oregon (good on ya, Trent), I arranged to have Wakulla placed in a breeding program. She flew out on Delta last Thursday. There are no guarantees, of course, but it seems to me (and to the breeder as well) that some of her liabilities as a falconry bird may operate in her favor now. The average passage merlin settles into the falconry routine readily enough, but expecting one to breed in captivity is another matter. Wakulla, though, was all too comfortable in captivity to be a good hunter or even a tolerable companion; our hope is that she will be tame enough to settle into life in a breeding chamber, with opportunity for exercise, and eventually a pretty little jack who might not mind if he's screamed at...and, down the road, some fuzzy little eyasses who will become great gamehawks.

In the end, this is all I could give her: Not a perfect life, but a chance to salvage something from the wreckage. I can only wish myself the same.

NFA field meet, January '11

2011-01-31T15:41:00.013-06:00

The Nebraska Falconers' Association field meet was this past weekend. Officially we met in Kearney, but as it happened all our flying was elsewhere. We started Saturday morning at "the windmill field", a piece of Crane Trust land near Wood River where we have hawked before and to which we were again granted access. I arrived just too late to see Nick Morris's passage Krider's hawk take a cottontail, but did get to see the hawk fly a bit as we tried in vain to catch a second rabbit.

[Krider's on the wing and on the fist. Nick looks pleased, as well he should.]

Stekoa caught a rabbit of his own just across the road, and we also met Eric Johnson's new passage prairie falcon. She's still in training, but progressing very well; Plan A, according to Eric, is to have her ready to go in September, but he's not ruling out some flights at game this season if the right opportunities arise.

After lunch, we adjourned to some public land near Holdrege and flew Nub, the redtail Donna Vorce caught by hand on her way to the November '09 field meet. We got flights at both rabbits and pheasants, but called it a day after Nub caught two big voles and got a bit balky.

Sunday morning found us back near Holdrege, where Stekoa chose not to follow us through the nice easy tallgrass fields, but instead to chase rabbits in a thick windbreak of cedars, through which only the dachshunds could move freely. After fighting our way through the dense branches for twenty minutes or so—during which time we flushed quite a few rabbits, but of course none of them wanted to leave their stronghold—we crossed the road, back to the tallgrass, and waited for Stekoa to join us. Nothing doing. So eventually we surrendered and crossed back over to the cedar hell. As soon as Maxine ran in, Stekoa launched into the darkness of the windbreak; moments later, we heard the squeal of a rabbit from that near-impossible tangle. Stekoa had refused to follow us because he had marked that bunny; fortunately, Max flushed it perfectly.

[Stekoa, watching from on high. Photo by Amanda Kaufman]

Donna got Nub out again, but with moderate expectations: "He's not a morning person." We kept it short, got a couple of flights at bunnies, and that was the weekend.

[Nub in flight]

Harris' hawk news

2011-01-09T14:43:00.006-06:00

I went hawking with Karl Linderholm yesterday, for the first time in ages: just the reminder I needed to post these pictures, both taken in December.

Karl's hawk, Clarice, is named for Clarice Starling, the FBI agent-in-training in Thomas Harris's novel The Silence of the Lambs (played by Jodie Foster in the film version). So how appropriate is this?

Evidently an unseen merlin or sharpie had taken a shot at a flock of starlings; they had taken refuge in a cedar tree and were unwilling to leave when Karl approached. Clarice sized up the situation from a distance and went crashing into the cedar, emerging with a starling in her talons. Karl traded her off the starling, and she went on to take a cottontail a short while later.

Clarice's brother, Hannibal, also had an unusual adventure at roughly the same time. Originally trained by Mike Cox, he had been passed on to Bob Noble and then to Karl before being sent back to Tom & Jenn Coulson in Louisiana, who had lost much of their breeding stock to Hurricane Katrina and were glad to have a tiercel from that bloodline. On a trip west to Arizona, Hannibal took this beast, an antelope jackrabbit:

As Jenn points out, "very few falconry birds have ever caught this species." No wonder: restricted to parts of Mexico and southern Arizona, Lepus alleni grows to as large as 13 pounds (among North American hares, only the Alaskan hare is bigger) and its top speed approaches 40 mph! Jenn's comment, "I think Mike would be proud of Hannibal for this catch," is a decided understatement.

Ginger binger redux

2011-01-01T12:30:00.003-06:00

He's the colour of nutmeg and the heat of ginger.

—William Shakespeare, Henry V

A recycled post from this time last year, with a few new additions (highlighted in red).

Exactly when and how the tradition started I no longer remember, but for years our family's New Year's Eve ritual was to stay up late, playing Monopoly and drinking ginger ale or ginger beer. My dad, whose usual beverage of choice was Coca-Cola, may have started this, or it may have originated with my grandfather, but in any case I have become the keeper of the flame and do my best to uphold the family tradition.

This year's year's twist: Throw caution to the wind, sample as many different brands and varieties as I could get hold of, and post tasting notes for the benefit of the ginger-loving public—or at least such of them as may read Flyover Country.

I was fortunate in this endeavour to have the assistance of Damian Barton, owner of Rocket Fizz, Lincoln's new and very impressive soda shop. It's a good place to find "vintage-style" candy (clove-flavoured chewing gum, even!) as well as toys (for example, Jesus and Albert Einstein action figures), but carbonated beverages are their mainstay. I discovered several new brands here, and they carry several of my old favourites, which saved me an infinity of driving.

There are three basic types of ginger soda. Ginger beer (hereafter GB) is the most "authentic" (as with ethnic food, that can be a positive or negative attribute depending on one's tastes) and usually has the strongest ginger flavour. In its most traditional form it is brewed from a live culture of yeast and/or bacteria, but may also be produced with pressurized carbon dioxide as are, for example, most colas. Traditional GBs are cloudy, as small particles of chopped ginger root are suspended in the liquid; when artificial flavouring is used, artificial colouring will often be used as well to attain the cloudy GB appearance.

Golden ginger ale (GGA) is darker in colour than GB, but usually clear. Again, it may be either brewed or artificially carbonated, naturally or artificially flavoured, and may contain any of a variety of sweeteners. The ginger taste of a GGA is usually not as strong as that of a GB, but more pronounced than that of a dry ginger ale (DGA). DGAs are lighter in flavour as well as in colour, and are the most familiar to Americans, Canada Dry and Schweppes being representative brands. The most recently developed of the three ginger sodas, DGAs are much likelier to be artificially carbonated than brewed, but may contain any combination of flavour and sweetener types. As most readers will already be familiar with DGAs, I did not expend great effort to seek them out for the binge.

Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger be hot i' the mouth.

—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

On to the tasting notes...

AJ Stephans Jamaican Style Ginger Beer hails not from the Caribbean but from Boston, where the brand has apparently existed since 1926. At first glance, this looks authentic enough: brown glass bottle, GB cloudy to the point of being opaque, decent heat. But I can't help noticing that the label makes a big deal out of "pure sugar & pure water" without mentioning pure ginger. A glance at the ingredients list tends to confirm my suspicions: just "flavor", without reference to origin; I therefore assume that someone in Boston has been playing with their chemistry set. Overall, okay but not a standout (though my second impression was more favourable than my first).

NEW: Barritts Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer is from the Caribbean, specifically from Smith's Parish in, would you believe it, Bermuda. I usually prefer brown or green bottles to clear when it comes to GB, but I'll make an exception for Barritts since the drink itself is so marvellously opaque. A very good product, made with real sugar and natural and artificial flavour.

Blenheim Ginger Ale, I'm told, comes in several varieties, all in clear glass with a white-painted label (extra point for style!) bearing an American eagle-and-shield design. The one we sampled, with the pink bottle cap, is supposed to be the hottest, and indeed it was nicely spicy. The clear glass shows off the nice, almost crystalline, colour of this South Carolinian GGA. Sucrose, natural flavour. [UPDATE: I can now verify the gold-capped Blenheim is also quite good and, as expected, not as hot. Hardcore ginger fans will favour the pink cap; novices might want to go for the gold.]

NEW: Boylan Bottleworks Ginger Ale is a solid DGA with nice citrus notes. Made with cane sugar, bottled in green glass. The notation, "Registered 1891", refers to the company's origins: New Jersey pharmacist William Boylan's first soda was not a ginger ale but a birch beer.

Buderim Ginger Authentic Australian Ginger Brew is excellent. Slow-brewed using an open-kettle process, cane sugar, and locally-grown ginger (extra points for that), then bottled in brown glass with a kangaroo on the label. (I think there must be a law requiring that all Australian foodstuffs produced for export bear a marsupial on the label.) Good heat, but very smooth.

Bundaberg Australian Ginger Beer is another outstanding and very traditional GB. "Naturally brewed to be better", using cane sugar and ginger root—in fact, the label advises that the bottle be inverted before opening in order to get all the little bits of ginger back into suspension. It's a great little bottle, too, short but stout ("shrub bottle", I think I've heard it called?) in brown glass, with a unique peel-off cap and, of course, the obligatory kangaroo on the label. Unfortunately, my one "local" source (actually an hour away in Omaha) has gone out of business, so I'm hoarding my dwindling supply, but Rocket Fizz may be able to order it in. Cross fingers for me...

Capt'n Eli's Ginger Beer, made by the Shipyard Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine, seems to have everything going for it: cane sugar, natural ginger flavour, brown glass bottle with a nautical scene on the label. But it's very clear, with mild spiciness at best. In fact, what it reminds me of most is a slightly punched-up Canada Dry. ("Not that there's anything wrong with that," he hastened to add.) A DGA sheep in wolf's clothing.

NEW: Cock 'n Bull Ginger Beer may sound like a drink brewed at a public house in Britain for centuries, but in fact it has been around only since 1946 and is named for the Cock 'n Bull tavern in Hollywood, California. Furthermore, it seems to have been the inspiration for the original Moscow Mule cocktail. Quite good on its own, though, and with real sugar, natural flavour, and brown glass, it gets all the details right.

The DG in DG Genuine Jamaican Ginger Beer stands for Desnoes & Geddes, the makers of Red Stripe lager. Actually, DG started out in soft drinks and only later began brewing beer, so this might be a better candidate as a flagship product. In any case, it is a wonderful example of a Caribbean-style GB: cloudy with a fiery but smooth ginger bite. Made with Jamaican ginger extract (extra point for local ingredients) as well as natural and artificial flavours. Sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup—a concession, I suppose, to volume. Bottled in brown glass, but in a longneck bottle rather than the short bottle associated with Red Stripe. (Thanks to my brother Greg for sending a couple of these along.)

From the same brewer comes DG Old Jamaican Ginger Beer Twist. This one comes in a green glass bottle, the better to harmonise with the lime slices on the label. Quite a few GBs contain citrus flavour, but this one comes right out with it, and it's a refreshing difference. Still plenty spicy, as one would expect of a Jamaican GB. (Actually, my bottle says "Product of Canada", but it is bottled for a Jamaican company to their standards, so let's agree it's Jamaican.) No high-fructose corn syrup in this one; the label lists simply "sugar".

NEW: Dr. Brown's Original Ginger Ale is, as advertised, an "extra dry" DGA. Not a flavour standout, but it was one of the earliest kosher soft drinks. Easy to find in New York and Miami; elsewhere, try your nearest Jewish delicatessen. Natural ginger extract, either/or sweetening, green glass.

Dr. Tima Honey Ginger Ale is a DGA from California. And in case you missed the name, the honeycomb on the clear glass bottle's label highlights its claim to distinction, along with two textual reminders (both with exclamation points!) in addition to the ingredients listing. All natural, "from an old European recipe", this does have a bit of a citrus zing.

Empire Ginger Beer comes from the Empire Bottling Works in Bristol, Rhode Island. Made with pure cane sugar and "natural and/or artificial flavor extracts". The indecision strikes me as odd—perhaps it reflects seasonal availability of ingredients?—but this is a pretty good DGA. In a unique pale-green glass bottle, reminiscent in colour of some old Coke bottles.

Filbert's Old Time Quality Ginger Ale is distributed by the Filbert Root Beer Co. in Chicago. I hope their root beer is more distinctive. There's nothing really wrong with this one, but apart from its slightly darker colour, this is a garden-variety DGA. Sugar and/or corn sweetener—more indecision—with natural and artificial flavour in clear glass.

Jackson Ginger Beer is made by the Jackson Hole Soda Co. in Wyoming. Batch brewed with cane sugar and natural flavours, bottled in brown glass, all as nature intended. Pale, ever so slightly cloudy, good flavour without being noticeably hot. A mild GB, this might be a good stepping-stone for the GB-curious drinker more accustomed to DGAs.

I first bought Maine Root Ginger Brew, more or less out of desperation, on an occasion when my late lamented Bundaberg supplier was temporarily out of stock. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that this Yankee GB was actually a worthy substitute. Brewed, as the name implies, using real ginger extract and cane sugar—in fact, extra points for using fair-trade certified organic cane sugar! Great cloudiness, fine carbonation, great spicy flavour. In green glass rather than brown, but then nothing's perfect.

One drink I couldn't round up in time for the binge, but will review from memory, is Old Tyme Ginger Beer. The pirate on the label serves as fair warning regarding the take-no-prisoners style of this GB. Hot! Hot! Hot! There is good flavour here as well as grab-the-back-of-the-throat heat, but it may not be accessible to those who prefer a less fiery brew. Work up to this one...

In Atlanta, Georgia, in 1885, a soft drink with purported health benefits was the original product of what later became a more diverse company, and eventually one of the world's most recognised brands. Not this one, however. Unlike its neighbour and contemporary, Coca-Cola, Red Rock Golden Ginger Ale has remained relatively obscure, and in fact disappeared for several decades before being revived. It's fortunate that Red Rock has returned, for it lives up to the slogan "Just the Right Bite!" Carbonated water, pure cane sugar, natural flavour. A very good GGA, nicely presented, as the clear glass bottle with painted label (style point) highlights the clear, deep amber colour.

Reed's Original Ginger Brew is a Jamaican-style GGA brewed (key word) in Los Angeles. As the label on the green glass bottle notes, it is all-natural, with 25% fruit juice (pineapple, lemon, and lime) as well as fructose and fresh ginger root. Unsurprisingly, this one has a distinct citrus character to it; otherwise it is a GGA with DGA leanings.

Reed's Premium Ginger Brew is, by comparison, a GGA leaning toward GB. Also in green glass, with similar ingredients (the ginger content is identical) except for the sweeteners: Canadian white clover honey and raw cane sugar. Again, the 25% juice content gives it a genuine citrus taste.

Big brother to Reed's Original and Reed's Premium (closer to Original than Premium) is Reed's Extra Ginger Brew, which adds more ginger (did you guess?) and again tweaks the sweetening formula: fructose and honey (no information on origin) in addition to the standard one-quarter juice. Hotter, but definitely a GGA and not a GB. Like its siblings, a good drink that nevertheless suffers somewhat in comparison to the genuine Caribbean GBs.

By the way, Reed's also offers several fruit-flavoured GGAs: Reed's Cherry Ginger Brew, Reed's Raspberry Ginger Brew, and Reed's Spiced Apple Ginger Brew. Juice content varies from one to the next (anywhere from 20% to 60%), as do the ginger content and sweetening formula, which to me indicates a craftsman's approach as opposed to blindly throwing in new flavours and changing the labels. It is difficult, however, to make direct comparisons with the more traditional flavours—like apples and oranges, if you'll forgive the obvious play on words.

Next up is Regatta Authentic Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer. Regatta has a zesty character with strong notes of ginger and secondary notes of citrus, apple and banana. The finish has a ginger bite without the burn. Does this sound a bit too stereotypically food-critic-y? Sorry, it's a direct quote from the label, easily the wordiest in the lot. The label also mentions the use of GB in the Dark 'n Stormy ("Bermuda's National Drink") and the Moscow Mule, alcoholic concoctions I won't be mentioning again; our purpose here is to see how our GBs stand on their own. This, however, Regatta does quite well. Traditional GB cloudiness, Caribbean-style flavour but with a bit less bite than the Jamaican versions. Fructose, natural ginger extracts in green glass bottle. (This is Damian's favourite, by the way.)

NEW: Saranac Ginger Beer is made in Utica, New York, by the Matt Brewing Company, founded in 1888 as the West End Brewing Company. West End survived Prohibition by switching from beer to soft drinks, so presumably this ginger beer looms large in the Matt Brewing's corporate identity. It's a good one, too, uniquely smooth—almost like a cross between a GB and a cream soda. High-fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavours, in brown glass.

Sioux City Ginger Beer might be better classified as a GGA: darker in colour and stronger in taste than a DGA, but not cloudy like a traditional GB. Made with high-fructose corn syrup and natural flavour. Not really a standout, but pleasant enough, and as the Sioux City brand is widely distributed it has the virtue of being easily obtainable. My primary suggestion, should anyone from Sioux City ever happen to read this, concerns not the drink but the packaging: Re-work the bird on the label! I think it's supposed to be an eagle, but it's awfully hard to tell...

Sprecher's Ginger Ale hails from Glendale, Wisconsin, and comes in a stout 16-oz. brown glass bottle (as opposed to the 12-oz. servings of the competition) with a penguin-in-hell motif on the label. Ooookay... I would re-classify this as a GB, pale and slightly cloudy—honestly so, as it's made with real ginger. The fire-brewing process gives Sprecher's a very nice, fine carbonation readily discernible from its pressurized-CO2 counterparts. Interestingly, Sprecher's seem to have hedged their bets on the sweetener, as this GB contains both high-fructose corn syrup (boo!) and raw Wisconsin honey (yea! and bonus point for local ingredients). A very good ginger drink, and one that I find popping up in more and more places, even somewhat out-of-the-way places.

NEW: Squamscot Golden Ginger Ale from Conner Bottling Works in New Hampshire is apparently a very local brand, difficult to find outside the Granite State—which is a shame, because like Saranac it is unusually smooth. Thanks again, Rocket Fizz! Cane sugar, natural and artificial flavours, in clear glass.

Thomas Kemper Ginger Peach, like the fruitier offerings from Reed's, defies easy comparison with most of the other entries. (I'm sure Kemper has a standard GA, but somehow or other I missed it.) But I don't want to dismiss it too easily, because it stands well on its own. Brewed with cane sugar, peach juice, northwestern honey, and natural flavour; bottled in brown glass. Certainly fruity, almost feminine, but the ginger doesn't get lost. [UPDATE: Kemper does indeed have a standard GA, again in brown glass with natural ingredients. Good, as expected.]

Vernors bills itself as "The Original Ginger Soda—a Michigan Original Since 1866", and is in fact the oldest surviving American brand, but was not actually the first commercial GA in the States. It is, however, fairly widely distributed and was a frequent New Year's Eve selection when I was younger. While I have heard that Vernors is available in glass bottles, I've only ever found it in aluminum cans; presentation suffers somewhat accordingly. Still, an interesting GGA, aged in oaken barrels for three years, and with a unique note of vanilla. Made with a combination of natural and artificial flavours, as well as the high-fructose corn syrup you'd expect of a mass-produced brand (now owned by Dr. Pepper/Snapple). [UPDATE: The glass bottle is not just a rumour; Rocket Fizz now carries it!]

Zuberfizz Rasberry Ginger Ale is made in Colorado by the Durango Soda Co., known mainly for cane-sugar sodas. Had I read the label carefully enough, this one would have been disqualified before purchase—not because of the fruit flavouring, but because it is a "zero calorie soda" sweetened with "ZSweet" (erythritol, described as "a natural sweetener" but evidently highly derived). I had a hard time getting past the ZSweet aftertaste, but will concede that the raspberry bouquet (natural flavours throughout) was rather more delicate than expected. Otherwise, the most notable quality (not apparent in brown glass) is the exceedingly pale, almost watery appearance. Might be someone's favourite drink...and they're welcome to it. I'll pass from now on.

The one major shortcoming of this first [now second] annual (?) ginger binge is that it didn't include any drinks from England, the historic home of GB. With that caveat, however, some regional observations: Australia (Buderim, Bundaberg) and the Caribbean (DG in either formulation, Regatta, Barritts) have the most consistently excellent GBs, with a couple of American entries (Maine Root, Sprecher's) breaking into the top tier. If the quality of ginger drinks from the States seems spotty, it should be borne in mind that there may be selection bias at work—Australia and the Caribbean could have their share of mediocre drinks as well, but those are far less likely to be imported to the States. And GB is, after all, an acquired taste for Americans, who are far more accustomed to DGAs and may find the very notion of a spicy soft drink unsettling. (This may also go some way toward explaining the identity crises posed by GAs labeled as GBs and vice-versa.) Still, the States can lay claim to some very good GGAs (Blenheim, Red Rock, Vernors) in addition to the two GBs cited above.

Well, it's been fun. Time for some sleep, and possibly a shot of insulin. : ) A happy New Year to all...

And had I but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread.

— Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost

Do you believe?

2010-12-24T09:22:00.010-06:00

All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

—Francis Pharcellus Church to Virginia O'Hanlon in The Sun of New York

Saint Nicholas. Father Christmas. Sinter Klaas. Santa Claus. Known by all these names and more, he is one of the most recognizable characters in Western consciousness. In the English-speaking parts of the world especially, but elsewhere as well, his image has been shaped by writers like Clement Clarke Moore and Charles Dickens, and even more importantly by visual artists like Thomas Nast, John Leech, and Haddon Sundblom. Sundblom, who also created the Quaker Oats label, did a series of paintings for Coca-Cola in the 1930s that essentially locked in Santa's image: often depicted previously in other colours (most often green) and sometimes as a younger, trimmer figure (see, for example, Leech's illustration of Dickens' "ghost of Christmas present"), he is now depicted almost exclusively as...well, I needn't bother with a description, for you all know what Santa Claus is supposed to look like.

And yet I see him differently: More barrel-chested than pot-bellied. His coat is not red, nor even green, but the subtle and beautiful brown of sealskin. There is perhaps just a bit of white fur trimming, from an arctic fox or maybe even a polar bear, taken reluctantly and with genuine reverence. Under his hood, his face is not pale and rosy-cheeked but the colour of an old penny. No beard; I can't even think where that idea might have come from. His nose is broad, and his eyes are narrow, genetics combining with a lifetime of squinting into bright Arctic sunlight reflecting off water, snow and ice to give him a look as sly as it is jovial. His age: indeterminate. Clearly he's an elder, no doubt a man of standing in his village, but he retains a certain youthful vigor, the natural athleticism of the hunter.

His traveling companions are not reindeer, but husky dogs, and they are hitched not in pairs along a gangline but in a fan pattern, Arctic-style, for there are no trees to get caught up on and few if any established trails to follow; the dogs spread out and run as a pack, which allows them to choose their own footing and probably feels more natural to them. His sleigh is light and flexible, as well-adapted to the conditions as the dogs that pull it.

I believe, based on excellent presents I have received over the years, that he is in fact a falconer. He flies a gyr, of course, at ptarmigan and Arctic hares. Its jesses are sealskin, its bells silver Pakistani ones acquired in the course of the old gentleman's travels. (Somehow I don't think he uses telemetry, trusting instead to his senses and the openness of the terrain to locate his hawk after a long flight.) When game is flushed, and only then, he does yell "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Otherwise, as befits a man who has spent half his life in close quarters in a small village, and the other half alone in the wilderness with his dogs and hawk, he is soft-spoken, his voice barely rising above a whisper, which might give strangers the impression that he is shy when in fact he is merely self-contained.

As for his kindness and generosity, again I believe those are explained by the realities of village life in the Arctic, where everyone is interdependent and a hunter's good fortune is naturally shared with others. Our man travels more widely than his neighbours, into regions where his generosity is considered remarkable, but at home he is just a solid citizen—as I said, a man of standing in the village. On these travels, he is pleased to help the locals celebrate Christmas, or Eid, or Kwanzaa, but he personally celebrates the winter solstice, when somewhere on the other side of the world the sun stands still and then reverses course, heralding the climax of the long Arctic night and the welcome return of daylight. For a man who lives in the elements, it could hardly be otherwise.

Yes, there is a Santa Claus. And I do believe firmly in him. If my beliefs are a bit unconventional, well, then, perhaps so am I, and the strangeness of my beliefs merely attests to their sincerity. I shall wear my gyrfalcon cap out hawking this afternoon as a tribute to Santa Claus and his travels as well as the return of snow to this part of the world. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

"These Days" and "Days Like This"

2010-12-15T21:24:00.003-06:00

I haven't been writing lately, obviously, but will try to post something new soon. Meanwhile, a couple of songs (with similar titles) that have been getting me through lately: Jackson Browne's "These Days" and Kim Taylor's "Days Like This".

At last

2010-11-17T19:41:00.004-06:00

Credit where credit is due: Cooper's hawk tactics

2010-11-12T19:34:00.003-06:00

The daring exploits of this Hawk, which have taken place in my presence, are very numerous, and I shall relate one or two of them.

—John James Audubon, The Birds of America

Driving along Cornhusker Highway last week, I saw a red-tailed hawk rowing its way across an industrial park—then did a double-take when I noticed the long tail. Not a redtail then, but a Cooper's hawk doing a dead-on impression of a redtail's casual, point-A-to-point-B flight. The hawk slowly flew toward a utility pole, on which several pigeons perched. Just like a redtail, it dipped slightly as it approached the pole, then pitched up for a landing. At this point, of course, the pigeons are going to abandon the pole even for a redtail. The Cooper's knew this—was counting on it—for as soon as the pigeons flushed, she twisted into a stoop, stepped up her wingbeat, and disappeared behind a warehouse, hot on the tail of one of the fleeing pigeons.

Many birdwatchers, and more than a few falconers, think of accipiters as rather mindless, purely reactive predators: See, chase, kill, eat. Sleep. Repeat. And perhaps it is true that accipiters are less cerebral than falcons or buteos, but close observation shows that ambush is not the only option—that there is more to a Cooper's hawk, for instance, than just hair-trigger reflexes and cheetah-like acceleration.

[Urban Cooper's hawk. Photo by Pat Stull.]

In his book The Cooper's Hawk: A Cross Timbers Chronicle, Kansas falconer/naturalist Vic McLeran offers several examples of accipitrine tactics that demonstrate a deliberate approach to predation. Among them is another example of mimicry: a Cooper's that imitates the tilting, meandering flight of a northern harrier to approach, by stages, a flock of prairie chickens. Other creative Cooper's hawks in the book use coyotes or human hunters as beaters, or flush birds themselves by crashing repeatedly into impenetrable cover until the sparrows within lose their nerve and flee their stronghold. Another flies directly away from a flock of starlings, then drops low and uses the terrain to mask a flanking maneuver, circling around to take one of the starlings with a quick dash from an unexpected direction. (A trained hawk in this instance, but no one trained her to do that.)

Obviously there must be a first time for everything, but when a human happens to witness such an unconventional approach—a trick play, as it were—it's safe to assume that the hawk has successfully employed that same tactic before. But, for a mimic like the Cornhusker Highway bird, not too often: for a trick play to work, it has to be unexpected. This hawk must have played flocks of pigeons for fools, probably on a recurring basis, but not the same flock, or the redtail gambit wouldn't work. So not just creativity, then, but discretion. Intelligence.

["I know you're in there." Photo by Pat Stull.]

Several years ago, when I was flying a passage sharpshin, I was granted access to a good field in the southern part of the county, land covered by a conservation easement. Long and narrow, it was flanked on each side by a windbreak of trees. The field itself was planted in a mix of grasses and forbs, with stands of tall sunflowers that sometimes held a covey of quail—the reason for our visits. Also present were a flock of pheasants that made use of the field, feeding among the forbs and resting in the phragmites that grew in the lower, wetter spots, and a big female Cooper's hawk that hunted them. We saw her regularly, and every time we did see her, she was hunting the pheasants, and so I assume that she must have been successful or surely she would have given up long before: a pheasant is a tough bird, far from an easy kill even for such a large Cooper's.

Occasionally I'd see her perched on a branch way down the treeline, but she usually made her appearance in typical spooky Cooper's hawk fashion, materializing as if from nowhere, weaving her way through the trees of the windbreak with the accipitrine flap-flap-glide. As she came level with the pheasants, she'd veer suddenly toward them, putting them to flight. I was struck by the predictability of her attack, wondering how it could possibly remain effective...until I saw her do it differently. On that occasion, she again came flying down the treeline, not flap-flap-gliding in search mode but pelting through the trees in headlong pursuit of a bird—except there was no bird in front of her. The appearance, though, that she was otherwise occupied froze the pheasants in place for an extra second or two...a fatal mistake for a late-rising hen.

One of the limitations of falconry is that our hawks tend to be constrained, flown in the ways we think to fly them, and plying their trade at best a few hours a day. Little wonder then that wild hawks can show us things we might not have imagined, things that surprise us. Cooper's hawks may hold more surprises that most, owing to their aversion to close observation. It can take hours afield to glimpse mere seconds of an accipiter's day. It's easy to respect the physical abilities of a Cooper's hawk, but perhaps it's time we paid more attention to their mental abilities.

Trials and tribulations

2010-10-26T19:51:00.004-05:00

She was a picture of relaxation, perched on a fallen, sun-bleached snag with one foot drawn up into her body plumage, the small feathers under her chin fluffed out: the casual demeanor of a merlin enjoying her leisure. Exactly what I'd like to see on the block at home.

But not out in the field.

I leaned against the middle of the log, ten feet away from Wakulla, which was about as close as she would let me get. She would fly toward me when I swung the lure, but refused to land on my gloved fist or even commit fully to the lure. So I watched her, and she mostly ignored me, occasionally preening or bobbing her head at something moving in the distance. Every once in a while she'd drop from her perch and fly down the creek, chasing dragonflies. She caught a few of them, which was a shame, because this place, if anything, needed more dragonflies to keep the mosquitoes in check. I swatted mosquitoes by the dozen, my jeans, T-shirt, and bare arms a battlefield strewn with the bloody corpses of the slain. Most of it, of course, was my blood, and despite the slaughter the bloodthirsty little bitches kept coming and coming and coming. Over the next couple of weeks, I somehow managed not to come down with West Nile Fever, but it couldn't have been from lack of exposure.

At some point in the course of her rehabilitation, training, and moult, my "passage" merlin (trapped inside a building for a week without food) had undergone a reversion in behavior, acting like an eyas—a screaming eyas at that, so I hardly ever get to see the relaxed-merlin posture: as soon as I walk in the room, she starts screaming for food; once she finally gets it, she clutches it and mantles over it and continues screaming between bites. It's noisy, painfully noisy, but more to the point, it's misleading. She acts hungry whether she really is hungry or not, and evidently I'm slow-witted enough to fall for it. More than once.

Unable to discern her true response weight, I took her out a few weeks ago and, as described above, she sandbagged me, persistently refusing the fist until well after sunset and just before dark. So I dropped her weight by ten grams—a lot on a bird of this size—and took her out again a week later, with distressingly similar results. She did hit and knock down a sparrow, even if she didn't press for the kill, and she did take a long slip at a passing blackbird. But she remained recalcitrant, refusing the fist altogether and eventually flying off into the darkness. I pulled out the telemetry, marked her down in a cedar tree about a quarter-mile from the log we had shared, and got her back early the next morning, though not without difficulty and not without making more involuntary blood donations to the local mosquito population.

Since those misadventures, I've become more disciplined and have discovered Wakulla's current response weight, or at least a close approximation thereof. With increased flying time, she's grown visibly stronger—and her manners have improved somewhat, though they're still not exactly Emily Post. Now the challenge is to get her chasing birds seriously. Challenges, plural, actually: get her attention focused away from me, figure out what kind of slips she wants, at what kind of quarry, and perhaps dial in her weight with a bit more specificity. If falconry was always easy, perhaps I'd find it less interesting, but I'll be glad to get this set of challenges behind us. Fingers crossed...

One more dragonfly

2010-10-04T18:27:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I posted a blanket. This is from Pendleton's American Indian College Fund series.

Niobrara dragonflies

2010-10-02T21:18:00.009-05:00

A belated post: A gallery of dragonflies from the Niobrara River Valley, shot on our kayak trip in August.

Twelve-spotted skimmer, male and female. (Much better than the blurry snapshot I got in Pennsylvania earlier in the summer.)

Common whitetail

The next four shots are all of meadowhawks. The first is, I believe, an adult white-faced, the second an adult cherry-faced or ruby. The latter two are juveniles, and could represent any of the three species. Note that one has the basal half of the wings tinged with amber, while the other's wings are totally clear. This is not diagnostic, just an example of the variation within each of these similar species. Even experts have a hard time separating immature meadowhawks.

This last I haven't been able to confirm, but I suspect it's a juvenile of yet another meadowhawk species, the yellow-legged.

The fact that dragonflies are so difficult (or at least more difficult than birds, for me) is half the fun.

Fastest dog in the West

2010-09-20T17:13:00.010-05:00

Two years ago [link], I wrote about the Running of the Wieners hosted by the Platte-Duetsche Society of Grand Island, and how Maxine finished second in her division thanks to a tactical error on my part.

We missed last year's ROTW, but returned yesterday with Maxine and Anya. Anya, as usual, had no idea that there was a race going on and finished last in her heat, but Maxine won hers and then went on to take first place in the final.

As always, a lot of fun, and Nebraska Dachshund Rescue brought a good number of foster dogs (we transported two ourselves); hopefully the exposure will result in some adoptions.

Some photos of ~~people and their dogs~~ dogs and their people.

"Never Going Back To Memphis"

2010-09-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

Shemekia Copeland on Letterman:

The color of cats

2010-09-13T16:20:00.002-05:00

I like sled dogs. Yes, I keep dachshunds, and yes, I admire many other sporting breeds, but I also really like huskies and malamutes. Part of it is their utility, their love-to-work, please-can-I-pull-something come-on-let's-go-for-a-run-in-the-woods attitude. But another part is their looks: they look a bit like wolves. This does not mean that sled dogs are especially closely related to wolves—all dogs are closely related to wolves, and the resemblance between a husky and a wolf has more to do with convergence than with affinity. Still, I like the look, and on some level aesthetics do matter.

I've never considered myself a cat person, but I do have aesthetic preferences for some cats over others. My favorites have always been so-called mackerel tabbies, with irregular stripes in shades of grey that function well as camouflage. My friend Julie says she has trouble getting good pictures of her mackerel tabby, Pinduli, because her camera's autofocus won't lock on, so effectively do Pinduli's stripes break up her outline. That's my kind of cat—and I'm probably a bit slow for not figuring it out sooner, but there's a reason why.

Last summer, Scientific American published an article [official link here (full article only available to subscribers or for a fee), or full text without pictures here] entitled "The Evolution of House Cats". RTWT, but the scientific highlight is that, based on DNA analysis of various wildcat (Felis silvestris) subspecies and of domestic cats, multi-focal domestication has been ruled out in favor of one-time domestication of F. s. lybica in the Fertile Crescent, in conjunction with the rise of agriculture and the corresponding increase in house mouse (Mus musculus) populations.

Cultural change begetting ecological change begetting domestication... Fascinating stuff, but what really arrested me was the accompanying color photo of a wildcat: mackerel tabby. Of course! Without consciously knowing what a wildcat looked like, I had nevertheless gravitated toward wild-looking domestic cats.

Enter my daughter. Ellie has been begging Susan and me for years to let her have a cat. I'm not really sure how or why she became fixated on cats—it's not as though we've ever had a shortage of critters around the house—but the presence of those other critters was always (might still be) a valid excuse for saying no. In the end, though, and despite Susan's allergy to cats, Ellie wore her down. And then the two of them wore me down. So I agreed (reluctantly) that we might have a cat, but suggested that it might be better if that cat looked like something out of the wild.

Boy howdy, did we end up with a wild-looking cat. Here's the recipe:

Cross a Siamese and an Abyssinian and you get an ocicat, a spotted domestic.
Cross a domestic cat and an Asian leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) and you get a Bengal cat.
Now cross an ocicat with a Bengal cat and you get a cheetoh.
Cross a domestic cat (usually a spotted breed like an Egyptian mau or a Bengal) with a serval (Leptailurus serval), a wild cat often kept as a pet in Africa, and you get a savannah cat.
Finally, cross a cheetoh and a savannah cat and you get a "cheevannah".

If F1 crosses were used at each step—which of course isn't likely—the resulting cheevannah would be five parts domestic, three parts wild (two grandparents would be servals, one an ALC). Even with that wild blood diluted by using later crosses, the cheevannah looks quite exotic: Ellie's cat, Challa (not challah like the Jewish bread), has a reddish stripe down her spine, spots on her sides, stripes on her legs, and rings on her tail. She might or might not end up with cheetah-style teardrop markings below her eyes.

Challa is very social, yowling pitifully whenever she's left alone, and following us like a puppy whenever she's not. Her idea of play is all about stalking, pouncing, clawing, and biting, but she seems to have learned (after being sprayed with water a few times) that our finches and sparrows are better left alone. And after several carefully supervised introductory sessions, she and the dogs seem to be getting along fine. It's been an interesting experiment, and it's gone much more smoothly than I had expected.

And yes, despite all the scratches on my hands, arms, and legs, I'm really enjoying the wild child.

Taste of the North Woods

2010-09-13T15:30:00.001-05:00

I'll do another ginger beer review sooner or later, but meanwhile I've discovered another treat: spruce beer. Apparently this is big in Quebec and Newfoundland. The one I found (at Rocket Fizz) is from Empire Bottling Co. in Rhode Island. This milky-white soda smells like high-altitude/high-elevation conifer forest and tastes...sprucey.

I'll be going back for more soon.

Made in America

2010-08-22T16:10:00.003-05:00

West-central Indiana is just about as flat as you think it is: not billiards-table flat, not a geometric plane, but you would have to go a long way to find anything like a hill. This used to be prairie, or more accurately the prairie-dotted-with-trees ecosystem known as savannah, but for the last hundred-fifty years or so the rich, black soil has been intensively farmed. You see mostly corn, some soybeans; rows of trees between farms; and, here and there, small towns with small, neat houses. The names on the mailboxes and in the telephone book come from England and Ireland, Germany and Sweden, with a few Polish and (more recently) Spanish surnames thrown in for good measure. This is the land that produced "Small Town" and "Rain on the Scarecrow" and "Cherry Bomb", and while John Cougar Mellencamp gets the songwriting credit, I suspect that even he would tell you the Indiana countryside did much of the work.

The landscape gets a bit more industrial, though, as you approach Lafayette, and behind a high chain-link fence on State Road 38 is a mile-long factory building: home to Subaru of Indiana Automotive, or SIA. I've come here to take the tour. After checking in with security, I park in the visitors' lot, and walk toward the lobby. Before I even reach the building, I encounter a recycling station, the first of many I will see, for while the automotive industry as a whole may have a sinister reputation among environmentalists, SIA is one of America's greenest companies.

In the lobby are three cars, representing the three Subaru models built here at SIA: Outback, Legacy, and Tribeca. SIA builds Outbacks and Legacies for the Americas (the same models for the rest of the world are built in Japan), as well as Subaru's entire output of Tribecas. It's worth noting that while Subaru has five factories in Japan, SIA is the only place outside Japan where Subarus are manufactured. It's also worth noting that SIA is a manufacturing plant, not just an assembly facility: Rolls of steel come in, finished cars roll out. Thanks to the arcane rules of international commerce, the engine and transmission are considered of Japanese origin, but SIA's cars boast a U.S. parts content comparable to that icon of the American road, the Ford F-150 pickup. (And much higher than most other "domestic" cars.)

[A truckload of 2011 Outbacks ready to leave Lafayette. Good access to interstate highways as well as rail lines is one reason SIA located here.]

SIA is also one of three U.S. facilities producing the Toyota Camry. Toyota owns a 14% interest in Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), Subaru's parent company, and SIA builds the Camry under contract. This is nothing new; SIA once stood for Subaru-Isuzu Automotive, a joint venture between those two companies. (The SIA logo, I'm told, is 51% Subaru blue and 49% Isuzu red, reflecting the original ownership of the company.) Vehicles produced here have included Isuzu pickup trucks, the Isuzu Rodeo/Honda Passport, the Isuzu Amigo, the entirely forgettable Isuzu Axiom, and the sadly-now-extinct Subaru Baja. (On which more later.)

Okay, I've got badly off-track with all this business talk. Hardly my forté. Where were we? Oh yes, the lobby... Well, the lobby is much as you'd expect: glass cases full of trophies, flower arrangements on the tables, comfortable sofas, etc. Less expected, although it makes perfect sense: a framed photo of "Crocodile Dundee" actor Paul Hogan posing with a first-generation Outback, alongside his trademark hat and a largeish knife. Clearly the folks at SIA have not forgotten that the Outback, more than any other car, secured Subaru's niche in the American market. As the SUV craze was beginning, Subaru was without a truck platform on which to base an SUV. Their solution was to upgrade the Legacy station wagon into "The World's First Sport Utility Wagon", employ Hogan for a bit of Aussie cachet, and essentially invent the crossover vehicle before that term came into being. Subarus were already capable soft-road and off-road vehicles, thanks to their symmetrical all-wheel drive (AWD) system; but after a series of Outback advertisements starring Paul Hogan, the public knew it.

As tour coordinator Tom Elger arrives, the receptionist very politely confiscates both my camera and my cell phone, which I had quite forgotten has a camera as well. Tom explains that Subaru and especially Toyota are concerned that trade secrets might be divulged through photography, which sounds reasonable, but then why invite the public in at all? I don't ask that question aloud, just surrender my optical contraband and don the radio headset which will allow Tom to be heard by everyone on the tour even in the noisier parts of the plant. Our group includes a family with kids, a class of engineering students from Purdue University, and a trio of engineers from Fender Guitars—a treat for Tom, who has been playing for thirty-odd years and owns a Telecaster. While many Subaru enthusiasts such as myself take the tour, businessmen also make the pilgrimage to Lafayette to learn what has made Subaru in general, and SIA in particular, so successful.

[Virtual tours here.]

One of those factors is Japanese-style management. SIA has a relatively "flat" organizational chart, meaning there is minimal hierarchy: Tom cites just five levels from associates on the factory floor to the top SIA brass. The atmosphere of egalitarianism is enhanced by the fact that each employee wears a uniform shirt embroidered with his or her name—even the "suits" don't wear suits—and the executive staff work in open-plan offices. These measures are meant to facilitate communication, which is crucial to kaizen: an ongoing process of small refinements, most suggested by the associates themselves, aimed at greater efficiency and quality.

Kaizen is behind one of the SIA plant's most notable achievements, its zero-landfill status. When FHI first proposed this as a goal in 2002, many at SIA were skeptical that it could be achieved. But employees made suggestions that made zero-landfill a reality in 2004, two years ahead of schedule. A few examples:

Packaging, especially cardboard boxes, has been reduced. Most parts are now shipped and stored in reusable plastic bins, which are later sent back to the suppliers for re-use. (As an additional benefit, injuries associated with utility knives used to open cardboard boxes have been nearly eliminated.)
A water-borne paint system has reduced both the solvent content of the paint and the amount of paint waste per vehicle. The now-reduced excess paint is sluiced off and the volatile compounds used to produce alternate fuels.
Recycling stations found throughout the plant are not the familiar plastic bins but re-purposed shipping barrels, made of cardboard with steel lids. When their time comes, they are themselves recycled.
Food waste from dirty dishes in the cafeteria and employee break areas scattered throughout the plant was formerly combusted in a waste-to-energy scheme, but more recently has been composted.
Even the plant's dust is recycled. Welding dust and floor sweepings are sent out to a company that extracts the metals.

Result: If you've taken out your kitchen trash this week, you've put more waste into landfills than SIA has in the past six years!

I listen carefully through the headset as we wend our way through hallways and over the factory's catwalk, but despite Tom Elger's best efforts to include everyone (not just the Fender engineers and Purdue students) in the discussion, many of the technical aspects of the tour go straight over my head. My notebook records a few trivia items: The enormous transfer press used to stamp out body parts from rolls of steel is three stories tall, with another two stories under the factory floor; it was brought in from Japan through the Panama Canal, up the Mississippi and and Ohio Rivers, and unloaded at a specially-built port in Madison, Indiana. Die sets are retained at SIA, all the way back to the 1990 Legacy, for manufacturing replacement body parts. There are seven miles of conveyor chain in the Paint department. Ostrich feathers from South Africa (female ostriches only, due to their feathers' lower oil content) are used to dust the cars in Paint. The Trim & Final department finishes each car to trim-line spec; non-standard upgrades (window tint on a model that's not usually tinted, for example, or upgraded shift knobs and pedals) are completed not at SIA but at the SOA (Subaru of America) facility next door, which is considered a port for tax purposes.

At a certain point, I lose the ability to retain information on the manufacturing process, but I am particularly impressed by one point. The Toyota Camry line is entirely separate, but on the Subaru side of the plant, Outbacks, Legacies, and Tribecas are all produced on the same line, and the volume (hence speed of production) can be varied depending on demand. (Tom describes this as an "open, flexible" architecture for the benefit of the engineers and students.) Cars come through in no obvious pattern: you might see three Outbacks, then a couple of Legacies, then another Outback, a Tribeca, another Legacy, and so on. But SIA's computers are in constant communication with each other and with suppliers' computers, so that as each car makes its way through the line, the correct set of seats and wheels and tires shows up right on schedule.

Because of this unique arrangement, SIA does not stockpile cars. Every Subaru on the line has been paid for, either by an end user (a driver who has placed an order) or by a dealership. This is one reason Subaru didn't have to run a fire sale during the worst of the recession, whereas the Detroit automakers did. So, fewer opportunities for bargain-shopping, but more stability for what is still a small, niche-oriented carmaker—and for its employees, none of whom were laid off.

SIA would seem to be a great place to work, in fact. Newly-hired employees spend their first few weeks learning their jobs on the line, apprenticing with experienced associates, for half the day; the other half, they work out on company time to build up strength and endurance. Breaks are frequent, and each worker returning from break goes to a different station within his or her work area. As a result, repetitive-motion injuries and fatigue-related accidents at SIA are very infrequent compared with the rest of the automotive industry. And SIA employees do not buy health insurance through the company—SIA picks up the tab for health care as part of its compensation package. On-site recreational facilities, on-site child care, recognition for kaizen suggestions...small wonder there's no union.

As the factory tour winds down, I begin to anticipate an extra bonus: Knowing my interest in environmental matters, Tom has offered to give me a firsthand look at another of SIA's proud achievements. SIA was the first (and, as far as I know, is still the only) U.S. auto plant to be certified as a wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. At the tour's conclusion, Tom spends a few more minutes chatting about guitars with the guys from Fender, then excuses himself to go fetch a car.

After retrieving my camera and cell phone, I emerge from the lobby into bright late-July sunshine and rummage in the pockets of my cargo shorts for my Serengetis. A few minutes later, Tom pulls up in a 2005 Baja. "Nice choice," I tell him as I climb in, and he grins in reply. Based closely on the Outback wagon, the Baja is what Australian drivers call a "ute", a car with a pickup bed. Think of Chevy's El Camino, if you must, but the Baja's predecessor, the Subaru BRAT, is probably a better example. Anyway, the Baja had enormous potential Down Under...but, for reasons known only to Subaru's global marketing division, was sold exclusively in North America. Quirky, but then that's been the company's reputation. Sales were underwhelming, and the car was only made from 2003 to 2006, but it has a loyal following among Subaru fans and resale prices (always a strong point for Subarus) have scarcely dropped at all.

As we drive past a row of Outbacks serving as company cars, Tom expresses his hope that a new Baja might be in the offing. When I ask if he's heard rumors to that effect, he quickly disavows any inside knowledge. In fact, he says, new models are attended by deep secrecy. When SIA first started building the new 4th-generation (2010) Outbacks, even the assembly workers couldn't see the car in its entirety: the cars were covered as they came through the line, and each associate was expected to lift the cover only as far as necessary to do his or her particular job. Drivers on SIA's test track didn't get a good look, either, as the cars were disguised with foam and tape to prevent anyone from seeing the car's lines before its official debut to the press. No way would he have advance notice of a new Baja, Tom says, just out-loud wishful thinking.

Fooey.

Of SIA's 836 acres, 620 are developed, leaving just over 200 for recreation and wildlife. Among the animals that live here or make use of the habitat while on migration are coyotes, white-tailed deer, beavers, bald eagles, Canada geese, great blue herons, and snapping turtles, plus of course all manner of beetles, bees, dragonflies and butterflies. As Tom drives and narrates, I see a shady woodline, a wildflower meadow that includes both native and naturalized plants typical of the area (lots of Queen Anne's lace in bloom), and a rather ordinary-looking pond. I'm expecting our rapid drive-through to be followed up with an opportunity to walk around and take photographs, but apparently Tom has an appointment in town early in the afternoon and we only have time for this brief look, which doesn't even include the heron sanctuary inside the test track. Oh, well.

No one, if suddenly transported to SIA's wildlife habitat, would mistake it for Blackwater, or Brigantine, or Yellowstone or Yosemite. This is, first and foremost, an industrial site. Nor are any of the species found here (not even the eagles, really) particularly rare. But that is not the point. While threatened and endangered species grab headlines, and their management is obviously important to preserving our natural heritage, it is also important to provide space for common species so that they can remain common. SIA's habitat provides food, water, and cover; while it's certainly not as rich as the original savannah, it's more beneficial to most wildlife than cornfields and beanfields. And, as SIA's employees justifiably point out: No one made Subaru set aside land for wildlife, just as no one forced Subaru to operate zero-landfill factories. They did it because it's the right thing to do.

And if that also benefits Subaru's corporate image, that's as it should be. Consumers vote every time they spend money. Why not vote for a company that is a good corporate citizen, one that treats its employees and customers with respect, one that takes steps to help the environment at the local and global levels?

Back at the front of the SIA building, I say goodbye to Tom, find my car in the parking lot, and turn in my pass at the security gate on the way out. The harmon/kardon stereo belts out Mellencamp again as I point the Outback west toward home. Leaving Lafayette, cornfields blur to the sounds of "Walk Tall" and "Check It Out" and "Pink Houses". Ain't that America...

The water that runs, a year later

2010-08-14T23:04:00.002-05:00

I'm starting to fall seriously behind on blogging, as other things (including the aftermath of a flooded basement) have taken priority, but will try to post every now and again. This is from about two weeks ago, when we once again kayaked the Niobrara River. [Link to last year's post.] With the obvious exception of Mike (who was, however, present in spirit and in a few small vials of ashes), we paddled with pretty much the same crew, and this time completed the standard 25.3 miles from Cornell Launch to Sunnybrook Camp. Rather than post repeat pictures of the same waterfalls, I'll concentrate this time on sights from the lower half of the river:

The obligatory shot of Ellie in her kayak. She's really starting to hate the sight of me with a camera pointed in her direction, but at least she's smiling in this one...

Big Cedar Falls. This is cold water. Really, really cold. I wish I was there now. (The heat index in Lincoln lately has been anywhere from 105 to 115.)

Another falls, farther up Big Cedar Creek.

An unnamed falls. Or, more likely, a falls which has a name, but I don't know it.

We laugh in the face of danger...and then we do what the sign says.

Lower part of Staircase Falls, where it empties into the river.

Middle Staircase Falls reminded me for some reason of Ocho Rios in Jamaica, only here there's no one hustling you for tips.

Upper Staircase Falls.

One of several dragonflies to make a temporary perch of my paddle. (Lots of dragons on the river this year, so I may soon have another dragonfly post.)

Another small, "unnamed" falls, except that this one really might be, since it's all of about three feet high. I propose the name Three Feet Falls.

Last year I lamented not having photographed Deb's keeshond, Queso. I had no intention of making the same mistake twice. (Actually, I do that all the time...but this is not an example of that phenomenon.) Deb swears that Queso is a high-energy, even hyperactive dog at home. But put her on the water and everything is groovy.

We reached Sunnybrook just ahead of a thunderstorm, but the worst of it was back in Valentine. Half the town lost power, there were several fires started by lightning, and once again the streets were flooded (if this keeps up, the Chamber of Commerce may ask us not to come back), but we didn't lose any vehicles this time around. Susie's Forester (yes, she's also in a Subaru now) did just fine; no need to pull the kayaks back off the roof. She came along primarily to babysit; next year I hope to get her in a boat so she can see the river for herself.

Home on the range

2010-08-08T20:19:00.004-05:00

Blackwater River ospreys

2010-07-26T13:03:00.004-05:00

The longhouse

2010-07-26T11:59:00.000-05:00

Near Blackwater NWR on the Eastern Shore of Maryland:

A longhouse can serve any of several purposes: residential (the original longhouse was a multi-family dwelling), religious, or civil. This is a civil longhouse: think town hall or community center. (There is no religious longhouse as such here, though I understand that the tribe does have a church building; nowadays most Nause-Waiwash are Methodists.)

Blue Rocks

2010-07-25T11:22:00.006-05:00

Blue Rocks is a felsenmeer (or blockfield) on the slopes below Blue Mountain near Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania. Boulder fields of this type are periglacial features, common in arctic or near-arctic locations in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, but also found in parts of the northern Appalachian Mountains. Two other well-known examples in Pennsylvania are the River of Rocks at Hawk Mountain and Hickory Run Boulder Field at Hickory Run State Park.

Blue Rocks was formed during the late Pleistocene, when glaciers approached to within approximately 35 miles of Blue Mountain. Freeze-thaw cycles broke off blocks of Tuscarora quartzite. The blocks—up to twenty feet in size—did not tumble downhill in a rockslide or rockfall, but flowed downhill on a layer of mud above the permafrost, resulting in not a jumbled pile of rocks but instead a relatively orderly line extending for approximately a mile downhill.

The blockfield looks like a river of rock because, in a sense, it is; over time, running water has carried away the mud that made this feature possible. (Other portions of the original flow are covered in soil; parts of the forest adjacent to Blue Rocks overlie buried boulders.) But since this is a geologically young feature, there has been little erosion of the quartzite itself, which remains highly textured.

Owing to the scarcity of soil, most of the plants here are lichens and mosses. But a few hardy pioneers like woodsorrel and raspberries are able to get a tenuous foothold in between some of the boulders, especially at the edges of the blockfield.

photoblogging: dragonflies

2010-07-25T08:36:00.017-05:00

The following were all taken at Blue Rock Pond, a small (approximately one acre, maybe less) impoundment near Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania. I was sorely tempted to post the photographs alone, but in the end decided to annotate after all. Feel free to ignore the text and just enjoy the pictures.

Eastern pondhawk.

The rather similar blue dasher; note the brown-and-yellow striped thorax and the diffuse brown on the wings.

This one drove me crazy until I found it two days later in Sidney Dunkle's Dragonflies through Binoculars. It's a female eastern pondhawk, not depicted in the quick-reference foldout guide I had with me at the time.

Slaty skimmer. These were the most abundant and most cooperative of the odonates at the pond. I had originally identified them as great blue skimmers, but great blues have white faces.

This is a damselfly, not a dragonfly. I believe it's either a dancer or a bluet, but there are multiple (and very similar) species of both.

Eastern amberwing.

Widow skimmer.

Several common green darners were present, but this is the best picture I could get; not once in three hours did I see any of them perch.

This last dragonfly was even less cooperative than the green darners. Only one individual visited the pond, just briefly, and like the green darners it never perched. This, the only picture I made, approaches the quality of purported photographs of Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster—but if you embiggen and then zoom, you can just make out the wing markings that identify it as a twelve-spotted skimmer.

Illinois skies

2010-07-19T22:10:00.003-05:00

Just a few snapshots...

"Higher Ground"

2010-07-16T10:17:00.002-05:00

The Believers:

Down by the river

2010-07-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

My favorite osprey nest, next to the Whitehaven Ferry, which crosses the Wicomico River on Maryland's Eastern Shore:

It's not discernible in this photo (my other camera, the one with the zoom lens, had a flat battery), but there was at least one eyas in the nest when Ellie and I were there a couple of weeks ago.

photoblogging: Great Smoky Mountains

2010-07-07T15:41:00.002-05:00

A photo album from the Smokies ought to have at least one shot like this: rows of blue mountains fading off into the distance. These, however, are the Balsams, shot from the Blue Ridge Parkway which connects Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee/North Carolina border with Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. You get the general idea, though...

Okay, the rest are all from the Smokies:

Cades Cove.

Whitetail doe. We saw another in a willow thicket next to Sparks Lane that was within hours or even minutes of giving birth; this one probably had a couple more days to go before dropping her fawn.

Horses in Cades Cove.

The fields here used to be heavily grazed by both horses and cattle, but the National Park Service (NPS) is now letting some of them revert to natural meadows:

...a boon for birds like this indigo bunting...

...and for birdwatchers.

Middle Prong of the Little River, near Tremont. A "No Fishing" sign can just be seen [click to embiggen, then zoom] suspended over the creek; this is one of the areas where the NPS is restoring native brook trout. Southern Appalachian brookies are arguably the world's most beautiful trout (I know, I know, the same could be said of many other strains) but were dealt a serious setback in the form of competition from introduced rainbows and browns. The restoration project has generally been going well, although it was recently reported [see here, for example] that one or more rogue "bucket biologists" had sabotaged restoration by putting large rainbow trout back into a designated brook trout stream from which rainbows had been removed at a cost of a few hundred thousand dollars. I hope they catch the ignorant bastards...and I wish someone at NPS would be a bit more ambitious. Honestly, 40 miles of stream (out of 800) for brookies?

This is the Middle Prong again, a bit farther down...

...and as seen from inside a riffle. Oxygenation is one of the key factors supporting trout; others include clarity, cold temperatures, favorable pH (from limestone), and fairly good populations of aquatic insects.

Some people come to the Smokies for trout...we come for the minnows. Ellie and I practiced catch-and-release with plastic cups (and, rarely, our bare hands) on the Middle Prong and in Abrams Creek. This one seemed to be defending its small pool in Parson Branch from my camera; I suppose it may have had a nest there.

Rosebay rhododendron in bloom near Tremont.

Ferns at Laurel Creek.

Wildflowers at Laurel Creek. I was too busy salamandering to identify these, but they may be some type of bluet.

White snakeroot at Parson Branch.

Creatures great and small.

And, oh yes, people. Susan's parents, Katy and Kelton...

...and my favorite photographer, intent on her craft.

Little River, Townsend, Tennessee

2010-07-06T15:46:00.002-05:00

Black bears

2010-06-30T11:15:00.006-05:00

Smoky Mountains salamanders

2010-06-29T19:10:00.007-05:00

The Great Smoky Mountains are sometimes called "The Salamander Capital of the World". On an individual basis, salamanders (known colloquially as "spring lizards") outnumber all other vertebrates—birds, bears, fish, raccoons, humans, bats, deer, etc.—in these mountains. But it's not just that there are lots of salamanders here—there are many different kinds of salamanders here: twenty-five to thirty species, more or less. The "more or less" depends on who you ask, and when: several currently recognized species have been lumped with other, more widely-ranging species in the past, and some experts believe that there is more splitting to be done. There is a consensus, however, on one fact—the southern Appalachians, and the Smokies in particular, boast a greater diversity of plethodontids or lungless salamanders than anywhere else on the planet.

The Jordan's salamander (Plethodon jordani) is endemic to Great Smoky Mountains National Park; another species, the imitator salamander (Desmognathus imitator) is restricted to the Smokies and the adjacent Balsam Mountains. Because mountains have much in common with islands, these and several other high-elevation amphibian species may be particularly vulnerable to global warming: as the climate grows warmer, their habitat shrinks; with nowhere to go but up, they might eventually run out of space if current temperature trends are not reversed. At present, however, the Jordan's salamander is quite abundant within its limited range. The imitator is somewhat less so, but that is to be expected: it is a Batesian mimic taking advantage of its similarity in appearance to the unpalatable Jordan's; this form of mimicry is most effective when the mimic is relatively uncommon and predators are more likely to encounter the genuine (distasteful) article. Interestingly, though, only some imitators look like Jordan's; where imitator salamanders co-occur with Santeetlah salamanders (Desmognathus santeetlah) or Ocoee salamanders (D. ocoee), some individuals look like those species, which predators are not known to find aversive.

...All of which goes to illustrate a basic point about plethodontid salamanders: they're confusing as hell. Hardly any of these species are uniform in appearance, most look very similar (in some guises) to other species, many hybridize at least occasionally, and even if you're a professional herpetologist with DNA samples and a fully-equipped lab, no identification will be forever beyond dispute because salamander taxonomists agree on very little. Evolution is an ongoing process, after all, and not always conducive to neat little boxes.

With those caveats in mind, let's take a look at a couple of low- to mid-elevation 'manders.

Spotted dusky salamanders (Desmognathus conanti) are widely distributed across the Southeast, and are generally found at lower elevations in the Smokies. These were found at Laurel Creek, between Townsend and Cades Cove, on the Tennessee side of the park. (They were captured in water and placed on the sandy bank for photographic purposes, then returned to their stream.)

The next two photos might also represent D. conanti—note the similarity of color scheme if not pattern—but I believe they are in fact seal salamanders. Seal salamanders (Desmognathus monticola) also occur across the Southeast and are (surprise, surprise) quite variable. Stephen Tilley and James Huheey, authors of the handbook Reptiles & Amphibians of the Smokies, explain the common name: "Individuals are often observed during the daytime, posed on wet rocks in the spray of rushing streams with their heads raised to create profiles reminiscent of a seal's."

These next photos are definitely—well, you know, more or less definitely—seal salamanders. Still more variation here: dark grey with red markings...

...and nearly black. Incidentally, all of the photos I've attributed to seal salamanders are in situ shots from a single location on a small tributary creek of the Little River near the park entrance at Townsend.

By the way, if I've given the impression that scientists who study salamanders are contentious, it's only fair to point out that their subjects are as well. The dusky at lower left in the picture below (again, from near the park entrance at Townsend) had better be careful: seal salamanders are not at all shy about eating other salamanders, including their own kind.

A few tools to take with you for a salamandering expedition (this is not necessarily a comprehensive list):

River shoes—something that can get wet and retain good traction. Felt-soled wading boots might be the perfect choice.
Flashlight or headlamp for night-time or other low-light conditions. Red or green LEDs are the best choice, as they will not affect your night vision and tend not to disturb the animals.
Clear plastic cups—indispensable for gently catching specimens, especially in the water. All amphibians in the park are protected by law, so be sure to return each individual to its capture site.
Camera, preferably with a macro lens or setting.
Tilley and Huheey, Reptiles & Amphibians of the Smokies, published by and available from the Great Smoky Mountains Association.
C. Kenneth Dodd, Jr., The Amphibians of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, published by the University of Tennessee Press and also available from the Great Smoky Mountains Association.
After being fed upon by mosquitos, you'll want something to stop the itch. But I do not recommend DEET or other chemical repellents to prevent mosquito bites: salamanders and other amphibians are sensitive to such chemicals, which are readily absorbed through their moist skin. Do the 'manders a favor: deal with mosquito bites after the fact.

Hide and seek

2010-06-28T17:34:00.009-05:00

Taken along the banks of the Middle Prong of the Little River, near Tremont:

The spider was nearly the size of my outstretched hand. (I buy my gloves in size XL.) The kind of arachnid that might bring to mind Shelob or Aragog.

But did you notice the moth?

Sanctuary

2010-06-26T17:30:00.009-05:00

Last summer, we ~~built a fence~~ had a fence built around most of our yard, which was a sizeable investment but a huge quality-of-life improvement, especially for the dogs. It also had the unintended benefit of providing a couple of sites for new niche gardens. This is the Great Smoky Mountains garden we built for Susan. [Click to embiggen.]

It's impossible, of course, to replicate an ecosystem dominated by dramatic terrain and huge trees, especially in such a tiny area (approximately 3'x6'). Instead we decided to let the tiny area work for us by focusing on microhabitat, selecting plants such as one might find growing in the understory of the Smokies' forest, perhaps alongside a cold freestone stream. The forest itself is merely suggested by the shade provided by the fence.

[Jack-in-the-pulpit, wild ginger, and black cohosh]

[Bird's-foot violet]

[Bleeding-heart]

[Solomon's seal]

[Spiderwort]

Besides those pictured, plants include ferns, turtleheads (both pink and red), bee balm, and cinquefoil. Most are Smokies natives, but we also made use of cultivars and, in some cases, close relatives as stand-ins. Water, another essential element of the Smokies, is provided in the basin (fiberglass, but with a convincing slate finish) and further suggested by the river rocks that "flow" from its foot.

The garden was started last year, and has become fairly well-established; our biggest challenges have been remembering to water frequently (this is a lot thirstier than our prairie garden) and keeping the dogs from trampling it too badly. Anya and Mandie are the main culprits; Max is usually content to doze on the porch of the mudroom nearby.

Soon to come: some photographs of/from the real Smokies.

The kids are alright

2010-06-08T11:36:00.008-05:00

Following up on a theme previously established by Patrick Burns (Terrierman's Daily Dose) and the Querencia crew, "The Kids Are Alright": Today's example is Mitchell Renteria, family friend and frequent photographic contributor to Flyover Country.

Mitchell already has at least one professional credit as a photographer, having illustrated my hawking-dogs article in International Falconer magazine a couple of years ago. He also interned for a semester with National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. And Mitchell, who is considering a career with the National Park Service, is even now on his way to a summer internship at Yellowstone. Not a bad resumé for a kid who just graduated from high school!

A couple of pictures from the archives:

Milkweed seedpod. Gorgeous lighting.

Golden river. This photo has incredible peace-inducing properties. It's been the background on my computer since the day Mitchell sent it to me; I share it now with the hope that everyone who sees it will sit and sigh and lose track of time for a few moments at least.

An artist's return, a re-enactor's kit

2010-05-23T21:41:00.008-05:00

I've been derelict in my duties with regard to blogging. Will try to catch up soon. Meanwhile, here's something I've been meaning to post for at least a month or two...

As some of you may know, my Uncle David's career as an artist [click here for examples of his earlier work] was very nearly derailed by Parkinson's disease. After a 20-month hiatus, he took up his brushes again—and then ripped apart his basement to create a new studio: "Man, was that a lot of work. Everything is ten times more difficult when you have this blasted disease...so you really appreciate any accomplishment."

With "this blasted disease", one must be cautious about tempting fate, and David is well aware of the possibility of relapse, but things are going well for now and he continues to paint. Below is his latest: This piece, done in egg tempera, is entitled "13th Virginia Infantry" after the unit with which my brother re-enacts. The accoutrements are Greg's as well.

Organized at Harper's Ferry, the original 13th Virginia was Col. A.P. Hill's regiment, and one in which a substantial number of Marylanders served. Its re-enacting counterpart, as I think I've mentioned before, is involved in historical education as well as fundraising for flag and battlefield preservation. Greg and Uncle David have a mutual passion for history, and I know both would be pleased to think that this piece might do something to raise awareness of the many fields of conflict that have been and continue to be lost to suburban sprawl in the Baltimore-Washington-Richmond megalopolis.

And speaking of conservation, both Uncle David and my cousin Scott exhibited pieces (David's "Rain Barrel", Scott's "Balance") at an Earth Day art show hosted by the Howard County Conservancy and organized by Greg Mort. Will update here if I can find links, but no luck so far.

Oil and water

2010-05-13T15:27:00.006-05:00

If the mysteries of the Great Plains have a heartland, it is the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The Sand Hills stretch two hundred miles east to west, from the valley of the North Platte in the south to the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota in the north. They are one of the great deserts of the world, an American Rub al Khali or Gobi. A desert in disguise: walk out of Valentine, Cody, Whiteclay, Chadron—one of those ephemeral little Sand Hills cow towns whose main street looks like a painted stage set with nothing behind it—and dig. Beneath the brittle grass and the thin smoke of soil, you hit sand; you are standing in a sea of dunes. And if you dig deep enough, you will come to an even stranger realm: a vast ancient subterranean ocean, the 156,000-square-mile Ogallala Aquifer, with more water in it than Lake Huron. A sea inside a desert wrapped in a green prairie.

—Rob Schultheis, The Hidden West

If you're anything like me, a figure like 156,000 square miles is a bit abstract, Lake Huron hard to picture out of context. Take a quick look at the map and then come back here.

Okay, now another quote from The Hidden West:

The last time Martha went home to visit, she found her father sitting at his desk with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's and a mess of farm journals and scientific reports. It's all over, he told her. Sand Hills cattle ranching's dead. We've got maybe thirty years left, and then the whole business is going to dry up and blow away; from Denver to the hundredth meridian, this country's gonna look like Afghanistan. The dirt farmer and the rancher's gonna be as gone as fifty million buffalo, as dead as Crazy Horse, as rare as a set of jackalope antlers.

Martha Schaller's father was contemplating the drying up of the Ogallala Aquifer through overuse, the mining of fossil water for thirsty crops like corn and lawn grasses. But overuse isn't the only thing threatening the aquifer, and thereby the economic and ecological underpinnings of this region.

TransCanada has proposed to build a pipeline (Keystone XL) through the Great Plains: a 36-inch crude-oil pipe running from Hardisty, Alberta, to the Texas Gulf Coast. Nebraska would be a 254-mile link in the project. The draft environmental impact statement has been completed; the public comment period closes in mid-June and will be followed soon thereafter by the final EIS. Until recently, this looked like a done deal. But if there's an upside to BP's recent/ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, it's that people are taking a closer look at safety issues.

At a recent meeting in York, Nebraska—click here for the Lincoln Journal Star's article—attendance was up compared to a previous meeting in Fairbury, presumably because of growing awareness of the situation in the Gulf. "For the life of me," said one landowner, "I can't see how they can even consider this pipeline and take the chance of it ruining the groundwater in Nebraska."

Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably, those with a financial stake in the project—and here I'm going to include politicians, who typically have a tough time saying "no" to projects that stand to bring in revenue—are viewing things much more rosily:

"TransCanada agrees absolutely that it's a very critical resource for the state of Nebraska. And that's why we're taking steps to make sure we don't jeopardize it with this pipeline." —TransCanada official

"I think TransCanada is second to none on safety and environment." —union representative

"I think they're a good company. I trust them to do the job." —county commissioner

"I'd say I'm reasonably comfortable." —state senator

The obvious problem here is that plenty of people had confidence in BP and its partners in the Gulf before things went catastrophically wrong, just as plenty of people trusted Exxon before the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound. Now, I'm willing to grant that everyone involved in Keystone XL is well-intentioned, that TransCanada's surveyors and engineers and technicians are competent, that in all likelihood nothing will go wrong. But the nature of the petroleum industry is that no one—no engineer, no corporate executive, and certainly no politician—can guarantee nothing will go wrong. [Link to an (incomplete) list of oil spills.] And the consequences of failure in this environment, even if the risk of failure is small, are simply too high.

If oil gets into the Ogallala Aquifer, there will be no volunteers cleaning the beaches of tar balls, no Coast Guard to deploy oil-containment booms, no practical recourse at all that we can count on—because the whole thing is underground. TransCanada will do its best to act (in public) like a good corporate citizen while (behind the scenes) seeking to limit its financial liability. Politicians will point fingers, convene hearings, and inevitably someone will describe the breach as "unforeseeable". And although everyone will agree in hindsight that the economic benefits of Keystone XL were not worth it, it will be too late: "From Denver to the hundredth meridian, this country's gonna look like Afghanistan."

Lacrosse miscellany

2010-05-07T10:56:00.015-05:00

From Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott:

"Where were their mothers?" Iroquois moms could be found on the sidelines, cheering on their sons (always sons back in the day), and most likely betting on the game. Taboos against wagering on sports, to the extent that such taboos exist, are a purely Western convention.

On the rampage at last

Back in the autumn, I took a sabbatical from coaching the Lincoln Rampage lacrosse team in order to concentrate on my falconry. (Which worked out, more or less.) At the same time, my coaching partner, Greg McManus, decided to step down as head coach and assume a more administrative role with the club. The team hired former Nebraska Cornhuskers coach Nate Hoeckelmann to fill our shoes, and things have worked out well.

Nate has coached at the high school and college level for over ten years, and brings not just Xs and Os but also more discipline: he really knows how to run a practice and make the best use of the available time. And, as Greg and I had foreseen, the kids have now come into their own: led by a couple of seniors and a large crop of juniors (and backed by a brilliant freshman goalie in Will Ehrman), they now have the confidence that they belong on the lacrosse field. As of right now, they are 11-2 and ranked #1 in the state by West Side Lacrosse, with one more regular-season game to go before the playoffs start next weekend.

I've attended several of the Rampage's games, and it's wonderful to see them playing so well and winning games, an accomplishment that eluded us for so long. But if I'm honest, it's difficult as well: why couldn't they play like this when Greg and I were coaching? I suppose we will have to content ourselves with the knowledge that ours was a younger, less-experienced team, and with Nate's assurances that the present team's success is laid on the foundation that we built. We started the program from scratch, taught the fundamentals, and (I hope) instilled a love of the game that will last.

Meanwhile, I've not given up coaching altogether. The next frontier: girls' lacrosse in Lincoln. I've been asked by the club to coach a girls' team at the high-school level; we didn't have enough players to field a team this spring (which is probably just as well, considering how busy I've been), but we'll try again next year. And I'll be somewhat involved in youth lacrosse as well...

The pipeline

The quality of high-school lacrosse in the area depends largely on youth programs to teach the sport to younger kids. We hope to resurrect youth lacrosse in Lincoln this fall; meanwhile, Ellie and her friend Amelia are playing up in Omaha again. A few photos from last season follow.

[Ellie: game face]

[Going for the ground ball...]

[...and winning it]

[On the wing, awaiting faceoff]

[Sportsmanship]

[Postgame: Ellie and Amelia]

You heard it here first

Last May, writing about my favorite Major League Lacrosse team, I referred to them as "the Baltimore-then-Washington-but-now-playing-in-Annapolis-so-let's-just-call-them-Maryland-or-maybe-Chesapeake-Bayhawks". I don't know if someone with the organization was reading Flyover Country or not, but they are now officially...the Chesapeake Bayhawks.

The itinerant Hawks have struggled to draw crowds in a lacrosse-saturated market. Their first home venue was Homewood Field at Johns Hopkins University (I attended their first game, which was also the league's opening game); subsequent home fields have included M&T Bank Stadium (home of the NFL's Ravens) in Baltimore as well as on-campus venues at Towson University, George Mason University, and Georgetown University. They are now in the second year of a three-year contract with Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. According to Lacrosse Magazine, the team's new management deliberately adopted a regional approach: "If you don't include any of those cities, you alienate somebody immediately, " says Bayhawks president Brendan Kelly. "We wanted to encompass the whole market. The Chesapeake Bayhawks. It was really a no-brainer, kind of a play off the New England Patriots."

Mr. Kelly, I hope the new strategy (which includes youth clinics and alumni games between local college rivals) pays dividends. I'll do my best to make it to at least one game this summer. And if you did get the idea for the new name here, there's no charge. I'm just happy to be part of the team...

Wrapping up

Yes, the Salt Creek Tiger Beetles will be back this summer. More to follow (eventually), so check back.

The Subaru tribe?

2010-04-13T19:27:00.015-05:00

What constitutes a community? Definitions vary, but surely common interests, along with geography, can play a role.

I attended my first Nebraska Subaru Owners' Club meet over the weekend. There were over 40 Subarus present, most of them turbocharged Imprezas. (Mine was the only Outback.) Naturally, I neglected to bring my camera. But this video, I think, captures the spirit of the local Subaru community:

My wife (who happens to drive a Honda) is skeptical about the notion of a Subaru community, and even more so about the notion of a Subaru culture. ("Soon you'll be your own race," she muttered sarcastically.) But obviously many of us enjoy associating with like-minded people, be it for a leisurely cruise, a spirited drive, or a day at the track. (All three of which were features of my weekend.) Some of us make a point of waving at other Subaru drivers, or, more interestingly, of parking next to other Subarus. To improve our chances of meeting the other drivers? So the cars themselves can "hang out together"? Just because they look good together? I preferentially park next to other Subarus, but even I can't tell you why. Maybe Susan's right, and it's sheer madness—albeit a harmless, shared, community-minded madness. Like many other groups, Subaru enthusiasts have their own terminology which, while serving primarily as shorthand, also distinguish insiders from outsiders: As someone put it recently, "Every group has its Muggles."

I think some car brands (Subaru, Jeep, arguably Volkswagen) inspire a sense of group identity, while other companies (Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet) are perhaps too big, too anonymous to do so. (Though individual offerings from these companies, the Chevrolet Corvette for example, may have their own followings.) For many drivers, a car is just a car. But for others, a car makes itself so useful that it seems to take on a personality of its own, becomes familiar in the full meaning of that word.

Why I'm choosing to write about this, I'm not sure. Perhaps this is just the blogging equivalent of a slow news week. But a weekend of motoring has me musing on the nature of community and the origins of tribalism, so I'd be glad to hear some thoughts from readers.

Grace under pressure

2010-04-06T20:22:00.005-05:00

When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.

—Mark Twain

Obviously someone at the Lancaster County Sheriff's Department is doing well with their training. Here, Deputy Ryan Schmuecker counts more than four (about ten, I reckon) and manages not only not to swear but even to be polite: "You want to pull your vehicle forward so that it's not on top of mine anymore, please?"

HT to the Lincoln Journal Star, kudos to Deputy Schmuecker for his incredible composure, and best of luck to all of us who have to share the road with the idiot in the SUV.

(PS to the Journal Star: the GL series is built by Mercedes, not BMW.)

Another eagle

2010-03-27T13:00:00.004-05:00

Speaking of Ellie and eagles...

Shortly after our return from Idaho, she took this shot of an adult bald eagle perched in a small tree not far off a lightly-traveled dirt road.

Why here? She zoomed back out for context:

It was calving time—we had already seen several tiny newborns on our drive—and the eagle was doubtless hoping for (or may have already found) a stillborn calf. Of course, some ranchers seeing an eagle dining on a calf might assume the eagle was the author of the calf's demise rather than merely the beneficiary, so we didn't feel bad at all that the eagle flew off, apparently made nervous by our stopped vehicle.

Meeting Luigi

2010-03-07T18:57:00.008-06:00

This is a harpy eagle, Harpia harpyja. Harpies, among the the largest raptors in the world, are native to the rainforests of Central and South America, where they hunt monkeys, sloths, and other arboreal mammals. Their stout, powerful feet can exert over 500 pounds per square inch of pressure; their largest talons are roughly the size of grizzly bear claws. They can lift approximately three-quarters of their own body weight and, like many raptors, routinely kill animals many times their own size.

This is a smallish primate (who also happens to be my daughter) tidbitting a harpy eagle. Don't try this at home, kids.

Ellie is under the watchful eye of Peregrine Fund biologist Jim Willmarth, who I first met over a decade ago when I was doing some summer work with the P-Fund in Montana. He kindly gave us a behind-the-scenes look at The Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise.

This eagle, Luigi, is an eight-year old male, raised at a captive-breeding facility in Panama and originally slated to be a breeding bird. Things didn't work out with his intended mate, a particularly aggressive female, and due to his own exceptionally easygoing temperament he became an educational bird—an ambassador for his species, which has been threatened by shooting as well as habitat destruction. [Learn more about The Peregrine Fund's work with harpy eagles here.] Luigi is exceedingly well-manned, playful and very cognizant of his own strength; we watched him gently push Jim's hand aside where another raptor (my redtail Stekoa, for example) might have footed in earnest. Jim also told us of tidbitting Luigi with a piece of liver; Luigi refused to take it, apparently believing Jim to be injured, until Jim showed him by moving it around that it was separate and not a piece of his own flesh.

Ellie, always an admirer of raptors, is now positively smitten with harpy eagles, thanks to Jim's generosity and Luigi's approachability. I'm sure there are plenty of Panamanian and Belizean kids who will grow up with an appreciation of harpies thanks to their own early encounters with Luigi. It's easy to become discouraged about environmental education when it's done badly—and trust me, I've seen it done badly—but done right, it just might be the silver bullet.

photoblogging: Snake River

2010-03-06T10:29:00.008-06:00

Ellie and I visited the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area near Kuna, Idaho—600,000 acres of mostly BLM land encompassing the Snake River gorge and surrounding plateau. This is high-desert country dominated by winterfat, sagebrush, and sparse grasses (along with, unfortunately, introduced Russian thistle or "tumbleweed", Salsola spp.) and supports a large population of Townsend's ground squirrels and black-tailed jackrabbits, which in turn support large numbers of raptors as well as a notable concentration of badgers.

View from the canyon rim.

The first step's a doozy.

Ellie, also shooting scenery.

Were I a serious photographer, I could have spent the better part of the day shooting this one sculpted volcanic rock.

The view downstream.

I managed not to get any usable hawk photographs, but we did see red-tailed hawks, ferruginous hawks, golden eagles, American kestrels, and of course several prairie falcons. The largest concentration of nesting prairie falcons is here in the Snake River NCA. (The largest wintering population, incidentally, is in the northern Sandhills around Valentine, Nebraska.) Prairies dine almost exclusively on ground squirrels when they are available, switching to horned larks and other birds at other times of the year. Other notable sightings included a number of ravens and Say's phoebes. And I feel obliged to take note of a population of what, in other circumstances, I would simply call pigeons; in this place, living on cliffs and surrounded by such deadly neighbors, I will accord them their formal name of rock doves.

Here, on or just outside the NCA, is a ferruginous hawk nest: bulkier than a redtail nest, in a mere twig of a tree that redtails would never use. This nest is conveniently located in the middle of a large prairie-dog town—"close to shopping", as a real-estate agent might say.

This is Mecca, a pilgrimage that every falconer should make at least once in his or her lifetime. I hope to make it back before too long.

The brick

2010-03-04T21:20:00.002-06:00

No storyline, just a few snapshots of a big female gyr x peregrine at play.

The better to see you with, my deer

2010-03-04T20:40:00.007-06:00

The Nebraska Department of Roads (in any other state it would be the Department of Transportation) plans a deer fence along a four-mile stretch of I-80 between Lincoln and Omaha in order to reduce deer-vehicle collisions. Everywhere else, of course, motorists (and deer) will have to take their chances as usual.

Another approach: kill 'em all. (Fortunately, this proposal has been modified extensively following an outcry by deer hunters and others with values that go beyond the purely economic.)

I just want to see the critters. To that end:

That's a pair of Hella 500 driving lights (packaged as "sport activity lights" for the Subaru Baja) and a pair of Hella 550 fog lights on a Rally Innovations lightbar. When everything's switched on, the road is lit up like Memorial Stadium. (A big thanks to Chris Cook at PTC Factory Outlet, Chase at RI, and Lael Cleland at Lael's Import Performance.)

[Tom Ford at Top Gear describes Hellas: "think tiny suns trapped in glass".]

It was twenty years ago today...

2010-02-11T19:19:00.004-06:00

The Specials perform "Free Nelson Mandela" on Top of the Pops. I defy you not to dance in your seat to this one.

Hugh Masekela, "Bring Him Back Home".

Tracy Chapman, "Freedom Now".

NFA field meet, February '10

2010-02-09T16:54:00.014-06:00

I'm starting to wonder why we (Nebraska Falconers' Association) have field meets in February, as each one is smaller than the last. (If the trend continues much longer, the meet will consist of me walking around talking to myself—in other words, a normal day's hawking.) This year's count was three birds flown: two redtails and a merlin.

[Ed Fitch with one of his gyrs. Regrettably, we didn't get to see them fly, as Ed arrived rather late on Saturday, but it was good to see Ed. Photo by Pat Stull.]

Nick Morris, a first-year apprentice from Fremont, lost his first redtail earlier this season when it was chased off by a bald eagle. (No telemetry.) Undaunted, he trapped another redtail, this one a nice-looking and strong-flying tiercel, in December. They had already caught nine rabbits before the meet, and on Saturday added number ten. (And yes, he has telemetry now.)

[Nick trades Ted off the rabbit. Photo by Pat Stull.]

Stekoa also caught a rabbit, and then I made a mistake. I tossed him a small piece of food to trade him off the rabbit, then took a bit too long to put the bunny away and offer him another piece on the fist. Done with his snack, he flew up into a cedar and refused to come down for the second installment...so we were forced to keep going. (Oh noes!) Eventually he caught a second cottontail, got two more chunks of meat, and was done for the weekend.

[Stekoa. Photo by Pat Stull.]

But the highlight of the meet for me was flying Wakulla. We've done quite a bit of training in the field by now, but she'd had limited opportunities to fly at birds, and I was feeling a bit frustrated. In truth, she didn't seem that much faster than a kestrel. Where was the vaunted merlin speed? Had I allowed her weight and condition to slip too low? Those worries have now gone away.

[Wakulla and me. I'm in the sunglasses; Wakulla is the good-looking one in the full hood. Photo by Eric Johnson.]

We set out Saturday afternoon (before bunny hawking, actually) to find some quail. Local falconer Chris Podraza, currently without a hawk, was serving as the guide and obtained permission for us to walk a farm just west of Grand Island. We ambled along a creek lined with cottonwoods, Wakulla hooded on my fist, until Nick flushed a covey of eight or nine bobwhites. Marking the put-in, we then unhooded Wakulla and kept walking. When a pair of hidden bobs flushed, she dropped off my fist, leveled out just above the ground, and turned on the jets. She soon disappeared around a corner, but some of the others had a better view of the flight and told me she had pitched up immediately above the spot where the birds had dumped into cover. Encouraged, we continued to work the brushy cover upstream, letting Wakulla fly mostly from the trees; as singles, pairs, and trios flushed, we were rewarded with several hard flights, quail rocketing through the trees with Wakulla in hot pursuit. Each time they escaped by the narrowest of margins, and finally I called Wakulla down to the lure for a well-deserved reward. She wasn't even breathing hard.

With all the hawks flown, we retired to El Toro restaurant for a Mexican dinner that couldn't be beat. After trudging through the snow all afternoon, we were beat. But the most exhausted member of the hawking party had to be Maxine, who had not only accompanied Stekoa on his double-rabbit hunt, but also helped the rest of us flush quail! She's turning out to be quite an enthusiastic bird dog—not that I ever expect her to point, but she can sure flush like a spaniel. She really is the best hawking dog I could have asked for: she loves to hunt, and truly respects the hawks—not just the redtail, who could hurt her if they ever came to blows, but also the merlin. My trust in her is complete, extending to leaving her alone with Wakulla both in the car and in the hotel room. I certainly wouldn't try this with most dachshunds! (Including Anya, which is why she was left at home.)

[Travel buddies: Max and Wakulla. Photo by yours truly.]

As for Sunday, there's not much to tell. Nick and his hawk had already gone home, and Stekoa was too heavy to fly, so we took Wakulla out in the afternoon for another go at quail. Chris spotted a covey huddled under a cedar in a small woodlot, and Wakulla got two chances: one on the initial flush, and then a reflush on some birds that had put in on the edge of the woods. But once they were gone, it was pretty much over. Chris correctly pointed out that it would be a mistake to continue hunting too late into the afternoon, especially with colder weather moving in (bobwhites rely on each other to keep warm, and once busted, a covey needs time to regroup), so we called it a day.

Fallout

2010-02-05T20:31:00.008-06:00

A stressful drive along US-34 from Lincoln to Grand Island this afternoon, thanks to a snowstorm last night and this morning—not that the highway itself was snowed in. Indeed, the fact that it was so well cleared was the problem, as flocks of horned larks (Eremophila alpestris, known in Europe as the shore lark) had abandoned the open fields to congregate on the shoulder of the roadway. I drove past—or rather through, as they flushed for every approaching vehicle and darted every which way—literally hundreds of flocks, each composed of hundreds of birds. I slowed for each flock, which made the trip longer and no doubt annoyed the drivers behind me, but evidently not everyone did slow down: the highway was littered with dozens of roadkilled larks. The carnage reminded me, strangely enough, of Christmas morning, after the kids have opened their presents but before anyone has cleaned up all the little bits of brightly colored paper.

It might seem odd to some that the larks would keep returning to the roadway when it is so obviously dangerous, but the fact is that life is dangerous for larks. They are birds of wide open spaces; merlins and prairie falcons hunt them every day, and there is no avoiding them, no place to hide except in the anonymity of the flock. I suppose they must perceive cars as just another predator. The difference, of course, is that a falcon must expend a great deal of energy and effort to secure a lark, and once successful, bears away its prize to dine. Cars and trucks can kill larks wholesale, and to no good purpose.

Because of their tendency to flock and their preference for open country, horned larks are vulnerable not just to traffic, but also to collisions with wind turbines, cell phone towers (and their supporting guylines), and fences. It's a good job they're so plentiful, because death by misadventure—in bulk quantities—is a common fate.

With all this death at the hands of humanity, it's interesting that should my merlin happen to catch a lark—one—I could conceivably be charged with a felony. Happily, that is changing: the new federal falconry regulations recognize that trained hawks are birds, free agents with minds of their own, not remote-controlled airplanes under the direct influence of the falconer. Strict liability will give way to considerations of intent, which is as it should be: deliberate poachers can still be prosecuted, but falconers will no longer live in fear of an unintended but completely natural event being blown out of proportion.

Empty cage

2010-01-23T11:25:00.003-06:00

I hesitated to write about this when there are so many larger tragedies about, but Susan persuaded me it would be worth noting: we lost our parrot, Spot, yesterday. The phrase "our feathered friends" is overused, but Spot truly fit the bill.

[Spot as sketched by my dad]

He's been part of our family for so long that we can't remember exactly when he came to live with us. I think it was the summer of 1992 when, after a year or so of keeping estrildid finches, we decided to try our hands at a psittacine with whom we might interact more directly. At the quarterly bird fair in Forest Park, Georgia, we met a breeder with a cageful of maroon-bellied conures (Pyrrhura frontalis), one of which particularly appealed to us for the playful curiosity he displayed in what could have been a bewildering environment of strange birds and people. The breeder warned us that he could give no guarantees as to personality; the bird and his siblings had been hand-fed for a time, but a subsequent clutch of parrots (a rarer and more economically valuable species) had placed new demands on his time and the conures had received less attention. In light of that, he was prepared to cut us a deal, and we were prepared to take a chance. It was the best $50 we ever spent...

We named our new conure Spot™ (the TM was silent) partly because he was 7-Up green, and partly because despite the name's alleged popularity for canines, neither of us had ever met a dog named Spot—and as long as they weren't using it... Evidently the hand-rearing he had received was sufficient; he was not just tolerant of of human company, he craved attention. He used to travel with us a good deal, and came to love the McDonald's drive-through window, because he knew we would give him a French fry—and then another when he accidentally-on-purpose dropped the first for later retrieval. (We knew we were being played, but it was impossible to resist.) The drive-through at the bank, on the other hand, was a huge disappointment from Spot's point of view.

It was also on these trips in the car that we came to realize that Spot had a sense of aesthetics: he loved to ride in the car at night because he enjoyed watching the streams of white headlights and red taillights on the highway. After this realization, we often made a point of taking him out around town at Christmastime to see all the colored lights. On these chilly December nights, Spot was in his glory, happily clicking and squeaking his delight.

[My stipple drawing of Spot helping out at pumpkin-carving time]

Spot never learned to imitate human speech, which was more than fine with us. Instead, we learned a bit of conure language, greeting him with a bow and neck-stretch and imitating his clicks and squawks. Most of the time, of course, we had no idea exactly what we were saying, but he apparently understood our intentions were good. We weren't his only people, in the way that some parrots choose one or two favored companions and treat the rest of the world with contempt. He got on well with my dad, adored Susan's mom, and was popular with most visitors (especially those bearing treats). Things weren't so harmonious, though, between Spot and Susan's sister, Christy: I believe Spot did like her, but he delighted in tormenting her because she offered such excellent drama rewards.

Ellie was born soon after we moved from Georgia to Nebraska, and Spot was her first friend. But inevitably the family dynamics changed, with Spot no longer the primary center of attention—fewer showers together ("visits to the waterfall"), fewer shared Cokes, fewer rides in the car. I'm sorry to say he was further relegated to the sidelines with the arrival of the dachshunds several years ago; an uneasy détente existed between Spot and the dogs, and the door to Spot's cage was often left open so he could come and go as he pleased, but we were never entirely confident that the dogs could be trusted.

Conures don't live as long as the larger Amazons and cockatoos, and we had begun to idly wonder how much longer we would have this bird in our lives. I had always expected somehow that when Spot's time came, we would have some warning, would be able to cradle him and say good-bye. As it happened, I was eating lunch at the dining room table with the dogs at my feet when I heard a soft thud—Spot had abruptly fallen to the floor. To my surprise, the dogs didn't pounce, but sniffed tentatively at the fallen bird. One of them mouthed him gently as I got there, but immediately surrendered him to me; I held him as the light went out in his eyes. Heart failure? Stroke? I have no idea.

The harder questions are these: How do you thank a friend who's been there for over fifteen years, followed you from house to house and brightened each one? How do you express your appreciation for someone who remembers every kindness and (eventually, perhaps in response to a bit of bribery) forgives every slight? How do you say good-bye to a bird who always wanted to stretch hello?

Old habits die hard, and I suspect that for days we'll go to open Spot's window blind first thing in the morning, talk to him as we walk through the dining room, listen for the contended grinding of his beak at nightfall. Sad as we are now, it will probably be sadder when those impulses fade, when we finally realize that our friend is really gone.

The importance of ground truthing

2010-01-20T17:39:00.006-06:00

Chas Clifton at Southern Rockies Nature Blog has hit this meme a couple of times lately (here and here), but you've got to love the visual here by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich of Real Life Adventures:

GPS can be a useful tool—I have a Garmin as well as several DeLorme atlases in the Subaru—but don't forget to pay attention to the actual road, kiddies!