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Give Wildlife a Break: The Devil’s Rope
Barbed wire is just doing the job it was invented to do — keeping livestock in and intruders out. But it’s so good at this task, it’s been a nefarious force throughout history and in wartime. In the wildlife world, it’s an invention that’s caused injury, death and significant suffering for countless species.
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Recent writings at The Free Quark.
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The Animal Rescue Kit
Our “gear” began with a collapsible pet carrier and some work gloves. At that point, we could still transport a few pieces of luggage and one niece or nephew in the backseat. Years later, in the same two-door Civic, we can barely get a turnip in the trunk.
The Expanding Universe of Creative Commons
The biggest bennie of attaching a Creative Commons license to your work is the unanticipated adaptation of that work in a share-alike universe. What? That is to say, I love the chain reaction that ensues from a single act of licensing — seeing the places your work travels, usually with proper attribution and adherence to
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50 Ways to Shoot A Tennis Ball
“The depressing thing about tennis is, no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall.” ~ Mitch Hedberg
Rubber + Adhesive + Felt + 12psi = the following photo gallery.
Rain puddles and tennis are comfort associations for me. Spring was about outdoor tennis in the Northwest . . . which meant
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These Aren’t Sleeper Waves . . . But They Could Be
If you’ve driven any length of the Sonoma Coast and northward, you’ve probably seen these signs:
These warnings are almost always accompanied by a family or group of tourists doing precisely what the sign says not to do. And every year, people drown after being caught unawares by sleeper waves.
It’s the deceptive nature of sleeper waves,
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Tussle on Mountain Lake
This was a first for me . . . witnessing a down and dirty fight between American Coots intent on keeping each other off coveted turf. Neither bird was hurt. Well, maybe emotionally. The loser scrambled across the water to escape the victor.
American Coots can drown in territorial battles, although it’s not common. They
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Ahimsa at the Tidepools
I swear, if I have to ask one more kid to stop throwing rocks at animals . . .
It was an imperfect plan to begin with: super-low tide on a Sunday at the gorgeous but hardly-secret Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. I’ve been waiting for a daylight minus (-) tide for a few months. I’d even marked
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The Imperfect Lawn
Years ago, I wrote a bit of satire for Flak Magazine entitled The Perfect Lawn:
There’s nothing like waking up to the roar of a Shindaiwa EB250 leaf blower pumping lawn detritus through your bedroom window at 166 mph. Every Monday it’s my urban reveille, followed by a tear-jerking plume of fuel exhaust from a Pony
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Today's Photo
Mudbath I’m keen to see eyes peering out of mudflats . . . the creatures from the bog, the foraging carp, the bullfrog in camo, a Pacific chorus frog in a dewdrop.
I shot this photo at Blake Garden, just north of Berkeley in the Kensington Hills. My vision is tuned to anomalies and, sure enough,
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Birds
Why Love the Uglies? This photo inspired this post:
I uploaded it to Flickr — where one of my favorite Flickr people had this to say:
It bothers me when people call them “ugly” or something like that . . . We have to learn and to accept . . . that all the living things are ok – that they
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Habitat & Terrain
Road Kill and Wildlife Crossings It’s estimated that 400 million animals die each year on roads in the United States, struck by vehicles. It’s impossible to know precise numbers, particularly since mortally wounded animals will crawl away from road shoulders (where the dead can be counted). That 400 million figure is extrapolated from various local surveys and collision statistics.
A Road
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Fish
Attack of the Giant Fish People I saw these gigantic creatures slithering through the shallows — whipping up mud with each slap of the tail. They looked like radioactive versions of pond koi, ranging from about two to four feet long. And where I was, it was just me and and wind and the sound of their slither, evoking the Creature
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Flora
Brave New Poppies . . . and David Lynch The earliest spring flowers are like firstborn kids: they pose for photos:
I appreciate spring this year. I didn’t in 2009. Our California sod is parched from recent drought — and the whimsy of a winter that flitted through last year felt like hope lost. Where’s the rain? It hurts to go into another dry season
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Urban Nature
Parrot City I haven’t visited my parrot people in recent weeks. The last time I saw them was on a mission for Parrot Patrol, checking up on them, making sure people were behaving around San Francisco’s finest. By finest, I mean the famous Red-masked Parakeets or Cherry-headed Conures squawking in the city’s canopies. And by “behaving” I
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Reclaimed
Reclaimed: Las Gallinas Wildlife Ponds Reclamation is among my favorite themes — especially as it pertains to nature. I root for the vines overtaking fire hydrants and windblown seeds germinating new habitat in former refuse sites.
On the heels of the Ken Burns documentary about National Parks (The National Parks: America’s Best Idea) — a chronicle of struggles and successes in
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Bug Nation
The Silky Wonders of Wunderlich Picking up from my previous post — about the rare and elusive Linyphia Vaudvillea … here are a few additional spider (Araneae) observations from our walk at Wunderlich Park in Woodside.
I’ve perused countless field guides and websites on California spiders but am still unable to identify the aforementioned species. Other spiders and webs are more
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People
The Unheralded Hulet Hornbeck Until this week, I didn’t know how much gratitude I owed Mr. Hulet Hornbeck. The sign below marks the head of a commemorative trail at Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline — a park in the vast and lovely East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD).
When Hornbeck began his tenure as Chief of Land Acquisition for EBRPD
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