April 2009

Breaking the Human-Horse Covenant

April 30, 2009 Agriculture

William C. Rhoden, writing for the New York Times posted a piece on April 30 about the devastating contribution the horse racing industry makes to horse slaughter. Although the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States closed in 2007, horses, including thoroughbreds, are routinely shipped across our borders to land in foreign slaughterhouses. The covenant [...]

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Spring in Micro (and Macro)

April 27, 2009 Photography

My lens life felt banal this week, so I moved in and went macro. Super macro. I call it my “bug lens” but it’s actually a set of two lenses which go by the names of Raynox DCR-150 and Raynox DCR-250. They’re $40 gifts from macro heaven that snap on to the lens of my [...]

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Baylands Babies

April 25, 2009 Baby Animals

Photos of American Avocet chicks and parents, as well as Canada Geese and goslings at Palo Alto Baylands – San Francisco Bay, California.

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A Cooperative Chalcedon Checkerspot

April 22, 2009 Bay Area

I’ve only hiked Gwin Canyon in the East Bay one time. That’s because on my way down, like a knucklehead, I was so enamored with the scene — the aromas of fennel, the calls of wild turkeys (or were they peacocks? I could swear) — the butterflies and bumble bees swarming wildflowers — that I [...]

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Wall of Pez

April 20, 2009 Birds

** Photo usage and restrictions It’s not a Phil Spector creation (Wall of Sound) — but the Wall of Pez is the product of 15 years of collecting. ©ingrid The proprietor at the Burlingame Pez Museum, a collector himself, loves him some Pez. And he’ll make you love Pez with stories about the rarest Pez [...]

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Fishing for Fins & Wings

April 19, 2009 Fishing & Hunting

270,000 is the number — the estimated number of sharks killed daily for their fins. The practice of shark finning is brutal and wasteful, but the activity persists in a vacuum of globalized policy mandating otherwise. This particular fact played into a stroll we took on an Alameda Beach recently. As the tide receded to [...]

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There is a Season … Terns (Alameda Terns)

April 18, 2009 Bay Area

Lame Byrds pun aside . . . Forster’s Tern Nation in Alameda – Sterna forsteri ** Photo usage and restrictions Their gravelly call precedes them, these Forster’s Terns (Sterna forsteri) with their fuzzy black berets and orange feet. They sound like aerial barflys with too much whiskey and smoke on the voice box. When it’s [...]

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Classics at the Blackhawk Automotive Museum

April 17, 2009 Birds

** Photo usage and restrictions For the automobile enthusiast, it’s 70,000 square feet of classic Bentleys, Woody Wagons, and Lalique automobile mascots. For the photo shooter, it’s glossy, obsidian reflecting the spectacle of chrome, color and line. The Blackhawk Automotive Museum in Danville, California is a serene enclave — set upon an unlikely perch, just [...]

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Who Says You Never See Baby Pigeons?

April 3, 2009 Birds

Pigeons are meticulous, doting parents . . . which is why you probably won’t see many baby pigeons in the wild . . . if at all. Pigeons produce small broods (usually two babies) and tuck them in nests high on ledges — homes which resemble their ancestors’ cliff dwellings. The pigeon parents feed their [...]

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