With longer days things are getting more active. My Phragmipedium caudatum has 10 buds distributed across 3 spikes, the frogs are having a ball and I’m busy planning a bog garden (to be put in after the ground thaws a bit – it’s still jackhammer time out there).
Amereega pepperi male transporting tadpoles (will embiggen maximally when clicked.
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Nepenthes truncata Paisan Highlands
I opted for Nature on PBS rather than the Grammys the other night – it seemed a reasonable choice for a nature geek. How was I to know that Lady Gaga would reveal that her parents were monotremes? I’ll leave the venomous spur speculation to the internet tabloids… Seriously, the Nature pick was a good one; the episode was “The Himalayas” and it featured quite a few favorites of mine: Mt. Kailas – the axis mundi, Temminck’s tragopan, takin, big rivers in deep gorges, and rhododendrons. It also introduced me to something I was unfamiliar with – aeolian biomes. To quote L. W. Swan who coined the term (and who seems to have been a major, though as far as I can tell, uncredited influence on this Nature ep), “…I had discovered something that was beyond and quite different to what was called the alpine region, or alpine tundra, the zone of the highest life. This was a new zone, a zone based on atmospheric nutrients, a zone of the wind. I would eventually call it the Aeolian Biome.” * I’ll embed the relevant chapter from Swan’s Tales of the Himalaya – he describes the history of high altitude spiders better than I ever could (and he was there for important pieces of it).
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I can’t resist pulling another quote – it’s the naturalist’s version of turtles all the way down. “When queried on this subject, Hingston, presumably when he was in his least lucid mood, vaguely suggested that the spiders may eat other spiders.”
The relevant Nature segment:
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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And the whole show (tragopan display at 42:00 or so):
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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Euophrys omnisuperstes and tachikoma – love the resemblance.
Euophrys omnisuperstes.
Tachikoma.
Wunderkammeriffic!
Via @microecos.
Off I went to a frogger’s get-together – lovely frog room, good pizza, great company.
Epipedobates tricolor Highland
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Allobates femoralis – two of my passions reference LBJs (little brown jobs). I like them in both instances – there’s always something that rewards close inspection. Here, it’s flash marks on the thighs (not seen below, but obvious here).
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Madagascar has Mantellas – small frogs similar in some ways to the neotropical poison dart frogs. I’d like to put together a large Malagasy biotope vivarium – a Mantella species, a few Phelsuma of some type, and maybe a group of Uroplatus. (Also a Platycerium madagascariense + Cymbididiella rhodochila, but they won’t move around much.)
Mantella milotympanum
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One wall of the frog room.
Breaking the long posting hiatus with some pictures from weekend activities.
I took a long scouting walk around a salt marsh a couple weeks back and chanced upon this set of tracks in the snow. My theory is that they show a coyote’s attempt to drag down a white-tailed deer. He wasn’t successful here, but I didn’t follow the tracks to find out what happened next – I was like a horse that knows the barn is thataway – heading for the truck!
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Photos, with commentary.
Clematis seed heads (I’m thinking Clematis virginiana).
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Witch Hazel (Hamamaelis virginiana)
aka
Pistachier Noir
With a nod to NH Franco-American culture, tan seed capsules each carry one or two small shiny black seeds reputed to be edible with an oily pistachio flavor. *
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Near a landing – I’m thinking abandoned logger’s office/shelter.
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Beaver pond (handheld) panorama. Click on the image below to embiggen moderately; click here for the full boat.
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In the mid 1800’s, the majority of New England was deforested. You find evidence (stone walls, cellar holes) everywhere – even deep in what is now regrown forest. I found what looks to be the remains of a sawmill foundation and millrace yesterday, miles from the nearest 2 lane road (and a half mile from the nearest tote road).
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A short video of the site – as much for the sound effects as anything. Cameo by the lovely Dinah.
My little narrative of how John Vaillant ended up at RiverRun centered on my experience – a less Ptolemaic version might have emphasized the key roles play by Steve Bodio and his review of the Tiger and by Michele at RiverRun. It’s easy to be the pivot when there are folks like these jamming on the lever arms. Noted in passing – Michele is on NH Magazine’s 2010 ‘It List’ in recognition of the central role she plays in making Portsmouth the hoppin’ place it is. And another shout-out to @westchesterdead and @apatheticalto – many fulcrums make for a smooth Rube Goldberg of connections.
Support your local independent bookstore. Really. Browse. Hang out. Buy. Tell the booksellers, “You have the best job – you can just sit around and read all day.” – they’ll love it. You don’t know what you got till it’s gone and unless you support your local, it may disappear. I’m making some changes to the way I link out to books from D0aMNH to be a touch more indie-friendly.
Support big cat conservation. Apex predators are critical – when they’re removed, the ecosystem changes, often radically and never for the better if one values diversity. The easiest way to pitch in is by contributing to organizations that are fighting poachers:
There are so many things to work on in our own lives – reducing the amount of fossil fuels we use, figuring out what’s going on with the food we eat, staying involved with local community issues – but once a big predator is gone, that’s it. A thread of, for lack of a better phrase, predator knowledge is broken. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for a couple years, learning the ins and outs of the particular landscape they’re in. That understanding goes back tens of thousands of years, passed from mother to cubs; there ain’t no magicing it back if it disappears. A few bucks now buys some time and a few bucks – a tank of gas, a new set of batteries, tires for the truck – make a big difference in anti-poaching efforts.
Via Adelle’s FB Gallery (thanks, G).
Author John Vaillant was in town last night on a book tour in support of his latest: The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. It was a good evening out (understatement). John, Sy Montgomery, Liz Thomas and I met before the event and had some dinner – much tiger conservation strategizing (in the ‘what can writers do’ sense) was done, contacts were exchanged, etc. Fascinating stuff – I was mostly a fly on the wall, but not completely.
John, Sy, yr humble corr., Liz
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Then it was off to RiverRun for the main event. I’d already read The Tiger – regardless, I found John’s reading to be riveting and, in the case of the first passage, where Markov meets the tiger for the last time, hair raising. I wasn’t alone – you could have heard a pin drop whenever John had the floor.
The book itself… Before I quote some reviews, my short version -> read it. Soonest.
Steve Bodio:
It is better than good– my favorite book of the year so far, and a likely classic in my rare favorite genre, that which documents (to use a book title) “the edge of the wild”, that interface where humans and “nature” are not artificially separated but in conflict or cooperation, acting on each other. *
Liberty Hardy:
…no other non-fiction book has gotten me so wound up in the last five years as John Vaillant’s The Tiger. It is a phenomenal book! I read it back in March and then had to wait *five* whole months before I could start selling it. But that didn’t stop me from talking about it to everyone in a ten-mile radius. I talked about it so much that it was driving my coworkers crazy. *
Sy Montgomery:
…those who truly know the tiger realize that it also possesses an invisible but equally lethal weapon: a brilliant and calculating mind. One hunter tells the author: “The tiger is strong, powerful and fair. You have to respect him. You think he doesn’t understand the language, but he understands everything. He can read a person’s mind.”
Of course, there are those who say a tiger doesn’t have a mind, much less one that can read ours. But Vaillant’s book teaches a lesson that humankind desperately needs to remember: When you murder a tiger, you not only kill a strong and beautiful beast, you extinguish a passionate soul. *
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After the signing (and chop marking – v. cool) finished up and a phone call from New Mexico was taken (see below) John and I headed out for more conversation, food and drink. Steller’s Sea Eagles were mentioned, the scale of the landscape in British Columbia was discussed and a good time was had (by all? I sure had fun).
A note on how all this came to be:
RiverRun often livestreams author events – last night was no exception. I asked Tom (the owner) for a favor yesterday – he emailed the stream’s address to Steve. When the event started, John thanked the folks that had made the night happen, including Steve, and as he did he gestured at the webcam. I had no idea whether Steve had gotten the email or if he’d tuned in but I thought, “If he’s watching, that had to have been a bit of a mind-blower.” When the signing was almost over, the shop’s phone rang – call for John Vaillant. Yep – it was Steve, checking in after watching from a ways away. I spoke with Steve as well. Tigers, tragopans and Pheasant Jungles!
I should no longer be surprised by the power of the internet to connect folks, but I continue to be gobsmacked on a regular basis.
Another great post over at BibliOdyssey sends me off on a surf-fest. This time it’s a series of Chinese bird portraits – among the ducks and birds of paradise and finches and pheasants I spied a tragopan. Tragopans live in an area that’s been front and center in my reading list lately; off I clicked to see if I could figure out which species was being represented.
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I’m basing my ID on the lappet – obviously, I’m guessing Tragopan temminckii. A bit of etymological fun:
These birds are commonly called “horned pheasants” because of two brightly-colored, fleshy horns on their heads that they can erect during courtship displays. The scientific name refers to this, being a composite of tragus (billy goat) and the ribald half-goat deity Pan (and in the case of the Satyr Tragopan, adding Pan’s companions for even more emphasis). *
Under the entry for Pan’s pals, the always helpful Wikipedia cautions us that satyr is “not to be confused with Satire or Seder”.
Here’s a picture of a half-extended lappet (to reassure you that I’m not just making stuff up):
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And a great bit of Youtube showing a Temminck’s displaying:
Some highlights from the long weekend:
A front-long (its opposite is back-long) bike sighted at the Farmer’s Market Saturday morning.
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From there, off to the Athenæum book sale.
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Two words that cause my heart to race (even if there’s a little staining) – tipped in.
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More images from Ehon mushi erami here.
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They’re the reason for the season!
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Most of the rest of the long weekend was spent outside.
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Not only does E. chlorotica turn sunlight into energy — something only plants can do — it also appears to have swiped this ability from the algae it consumes.Native to the salt marshes of New England and Canada, these sea slugs use contraband chlorophyll-producing genes and cell parts called chloroplasts from algae to carry out photosynthesis, says Sidney Pierce, a biologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa.That genetic material has since been passed down to the next generation, eliminating the need to consume algae for energy.
Bizarre sea slug is half plant, half animal | MNN – Mother Nature Network.
Vias @SynapticNulship.
I’ve wanted to get a loft of homing pigeons going for ages. A friend found nine beauties for me at a poultry swap meet (yes, such things exist) – at least I think they’re beautiful. A few portraits:
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Beautiful eyes.
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Some amazing subtle iridescence.
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Especially fitting: the man who sold them to my friend spoke Greek -his wife translated- and he was very concerned that they’d be well taken care of. Pigeons and the culture around them are amazing; permit me to recommend Steve Bodio’s Aloft
