11 May 08
Our Lord Vetinari
Apologies to those who are not fans of Terry Pratchett, but I think axmxz is on to something when he suggests that there is more similarity between Barack Obama and the gently Machiavellian ruler of the city-state of Ankh-Morpork than one would suppose at the outset.
9 May 08
Mimsy
It’s wedding invitation season, a process that can make you go a little crazy. I’ve been addressing envelopes in Spencerian, a nineteenth-century American outgrowth of Copperplate.
Today at the Whole Earth Festival I heard, and heeded, the siren call of a beautiful hand-turned cherry pen holder. (Dale will laugh when he reads this, because he’s seen this look in my eyes before.)
Italic nib, good paper, contaminated with Spencerian crazyness: I give you
Below is the first stanza of a poem I wrote for my niece back when she was about three or four five or six and had just been to Florida (I illustrated it and made an accordion-fold book for her, and was pleased to find out this afternoon she not only still has it, but knew exactly where it was and was able to read me stanzas two and three).
Mimsy. There you have it.
In case you want the second and third stanzas, such as they are:
Said Poly to young Tesla:
“Now mark me well, and harken
My bath I cannot leave to play
On meadow, beach, or wold.”
Said Tesla, “Poly, I’ll come in!
And play till sun goes down.”
Said Poly, “Roll and swim with me—
My bath is never cold.”
8 May 08
Cosmological Graffiti
I’ve been puzzling over this graffiti which is by the bike path underneath the freeway near the UCD Arboretum for some time now. Browsing through my copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy this evening an answer came to me. The upside-down V must be a capital lambda and the statement would be a reference to the cosmological constant.
This parameter was introduced by Einstein as a modification of the theory of general relativity because of his belief at that time that the universe was static. Later, after Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, Einstein withdrew this modification and considered it to be his “biggest blunder”. Stepping forward into the late 1990s with the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, this parameter has now made its way back into contemporary cosmology, as something needs to counteract gravitation. What could be more theologically profound?
Hey, the physics building is only a half-kilometer away from from the graffiti.
5 May 08
The Texas List
Hill Country, Big Bend, Davis Mountains
April 17-27, 2008
Here’s my bird list. I have placed an asterisk next to those I managed, however meagerly, to sketch… The three life birds are in all caps.
Black-bellied whistling-duck
Mallard
Scaled quail
Montezuma quail*
Great blue heron
Great egret
Cattle egret
Yellow-crowned night-heron*
Black vulture
Turkey vulture*
Sharp-shinned hawk
Cooper’s hawk
Gray hawk
Common black-hawk*
Harris’s hawk
Red-shouldered hawk
Broad-winged hawk
Swainson’s hawk*
Zone-tailed hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Crested caracara
American kestrel
Rock pigeon
Eurasian collared dove
White-winged dove*
Mourning dove
Inca dove*
Common ground-dove*
Greater roadrunner*
Western screech-owl
Elf owl
Lesser nighthawk
Common poorwill
Chuck-will’s widow
White-throated swift*
Blue-throated hummingbird
Lucifer hummingbird*
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Black-chinned hummingbird*
Ringed kingfisher*
Green kingfisher*
Acorn woodpecker*
Golden-fronted woodpecker*
Ladder-backed woodpecker*
Hairy woodpecker
Olive-sided flycatcher
Western wood-peewee
Cordilleran flycatcher*
Black phoebe
Eastern phoebe
Say’s phoebe*
Vermilion flycatcher*
Ash-throated flycatcher
Brown-crested flycatcher
Cassin’s kingbird
Western kingbird*
Scissor-tailed flycatcher*
Loggerhead shrike
White-eyed vireo
Bell’s vireo
BLACK-CAPPED VIREO*
Gray vireo
Yellow-throated vireo
Hutton’s vireo
Red-eyed vireo
Western scrub-jay
Mexican jay*
Chihuahuan raven
Common raven*
Purple martin
Tree swallow
Violet-green swallow
Northern rough-winged swallow
Cliff swallow
Cave swallow*
Barn swallow
Carolina chickadee
Black-crested titmouse*
Verdin
Bushtit
Red-breasted nuthatch
Cactus wren*
Rock wren
Canyon wren
Carolina wren
Bewick’s wren
House wren
Blue-gray gnatcatcher*
Black-tailed gnatcatcher
Eastern bluebird
Western bluebird
Hermit thrush
Northern mockingbird*
Long-billed thrasher*
Curve-billed thrasher
Crissal thrasher*
European starling
American pipit
Cedar waxwing
Phainopepla
Orange-crowned warbler
Nashville warbler
COLIMA WARBLER*
Yellow warbler
Yellow-rumped warbler
GOLDEN-CHEEKED WARBLER*
Townsend’s warbler
Black-and-white warbler
Common yellowthroat
Hooded warbler*
Painted redstart
Yellow-breasted chat
Summer tanager
Western tanager
Green-tailed towhee
Spotted towhee
Canyon towhee*
Cassin’s sparrow*
Rufous-crowned sparrow*
Chipping sparrow*
Clay-colored sparrow*
Brewer’s sparrow
Field sparrow
Black-chinned sparrow
Vesper sparrow
Lark sparrow*
Black-throated sparrow*
Grasshopper sparrow
Lincoln’s sparrow
White-throated sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Northern cardinal*
Pyrrhuloxia
Black-headed grosbeak*
Blue grosbeak
Indigo bunting
Varied bunting*
Painted bunting
Red-winged blackbird
Eastern meadowlark
Yellow-headed blackbird
Brewer’s blackbird
Great-tailed grackle*
Bronzed cowbird
Brown-headed cowbird
Orchard oriole
Hooded oriole
Bullock’s oriole
Scott’s oriole*
House finch
Pine siskin*
Lesser goldfinch*
American goldfinch
House sparrow
4 May 08
Cosmic Latte
Next time you are in Starbucks sipping your latte, marvel at the coincidence that it is the color of the universe, all averaged out.
It’s not getting really dark now here until 9:30 PM. This doesn’t leave too much time for stargazing!
1 May 08
Big Weekend Coming Up
We’ll be participating in the birdathon to benefit Yolo Audubon Society this weekend — trying to see as many species as possible by bike (we’re a week late but better late than never). We haven’t been doing too much birding by bicycle over the past three weeks, and have missed a lot of the migrating birds, but we’re going to do our best. If you’re interested in sponsoring us on a per-species or flat total basis, let us know! Thanks.
30 April 08
Into The Virgo Cluster
Look to the east these spring evenings and you will see a triangle of three bright stars: Arcturus, in the constellation Bootes, Denebola, marking the tail of the lion Leo, and Spica, in the constellation Virgo. In that triangle lies one of the biggest challenges in my Messier big year: navigating the Virgo cluster of galaxies.
This is the nearest big cluster of galaxies, about 60 million light years distant, containing maybe 2000 galaxies total. In dark skies many of these can be seen in a moderately-sized telescope, and it is quite a region for the amateur astronomer to get lost in. In bright skies it is a challenge to see any galaxies at all, and finding the 16 or so galaxies on the Messier list takes effort.
There is about one week left until the moon goes into the evening sky again, so I need to make progress now. Last night I viewed M98, M99, and M100, starhopping east from Denebola. M98 was quite tough, M99 and M100 were faint but evident.
28 April 08
Not Just Birds
We saw lots of birds in Texas. I sketched a good number of them; some of those sketches will be appearing on Bird by Bird.
There were other critters out and about, though, including javelinas, deer, coyotes, and bats. Millions and millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats that emerged from the mouth of a cave mere feet below us, at a rate of about 500 per second, for ages and ages. They swirled up into the air to be picked off at random by awaiting red-tailed and Swainson’s hawks (and be summarily eaten mid-air) yet drifted off toward Austin unfazed, eventually looking like smoke.
There are some sights that defy description, verbal or pictorial. This is one of them. I offer my meager attempts knowing that nothing at all can compare with being there. Certainly nothing at all can convey the ammonia stink of twenty million bats emerging from their sleeping quarters…
28 April 08
West Texas Tidbits
This morning we were having side-by-side views of Brewer’s and clay-colored sparrow in the scrublands northwest of Uvalde, Texas. We arrived back this afternoon from our trip to the Texas hill country, Big Bend, and the Davis Mountains and quickly saw our familiar crows and yellow-billed magpies again — quite a change of avifauna!
Best bird of the trip: the Colima warbler. In the United States this birds is only to be found in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, and it takes a long hike to get to the zone where it was found. We had a long 12-and-a-half hour hike that day, but after much effort and careful listening, we caught up with the bird. This was Pica’s 700th species of bird seen in the ABA region.
Most obliging life bird ever: on the Colima hike, a Mexican jay caught up with us hoping to procure some trail mix. He followed us up a few hundred meters, and often got within several feet of us. This was my first Mexican jay ever — I wish all life birds were so accomodating!
Most amazing astronomical sight: since the Big Bend area and the Davis Mountains have the darkest skies of anywhere in the continental United States, I figured on doing some good stargazing. I saw the zodiacal light for the first time ever, but what was incredibly cool was seeing the intersection of the band formed by the zodiacal light with the Milky Way. The former follows the ecliptic, that is to say the plane of our solar system. The latter marks the plane of our galaxy. Incredible to see this intersection in the real sky rather than just on a star chart.
16 April 08
700?
We’re off to Texas tomorrow. We’ll be looking at birds. (We won’t be on our bikes.) If we see the golden-cheeked warbler, black-capped vireo, and Colima warbler, that will put me at 700 bird species seen in North America.
My first big birding trip was also to Texas, in February 1990, also with Bill Drummond. I was recovering from a divorce and found the focused energy a wonderful outlet. I was mesmerized by pauraques and cranes, grackles and kiskadees.
I do not intend to stop birding, but I think this may be my last big trip that involves getting on a plane to see birds…
Lots of sketches ahead; I’ll post some when we get back.