Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro I saw a crow yesterday, seized in midair by a gale. Just five feet from her tree, she paddled against the swell like a swimmer in an Endless Pool. I may not…
A Budding Amphipodologist
Chris Anderson said it back in 2004: The Internet has a long tail . . . so long, in fact, that a person can leap from being a writer one day, to a budding amphipodologist the next. This may not be the anecdote Anderson had in mind when he wrote about the long tail….
A Murder of Crows
My friend Britta turned me on to this PBS Nature special: A Murder of Crows. It’s a fascinating and touching look at crow intelligence. It’s also heartbreaking in spots, as it covers the crows’ adaptation to us and our antagonism toward them. Crows share some of our traits — traits which allow them to adapt…
The Enculturation of Wigeons
There’s an Eliza Doolittle thing happening at the local duck lake. Hugh and I have been frequenting our neighborhood shoreline on Puget Sound — a local, private beach where we hold the golden ticket: an access pass. It’s a coup really, because a lot of the shoreline is privately held here in Washington. This short…
Great Blue Dreams
We came upon this Great Blue Heron, perched statuesque above a leash-free dog area. The dog walkers didn’t look up. Neither did the dogs. But my eye is always looking …
Dine Like an Eagle
We came upon this scene on a Seattle area beach . . . a small stretch of private community beach where we have a pass. Planted on the pebbles, way far away, too far for my 70-300mm lens, we watched as this Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) wrangled with a second eagle, a group of crows,…
Pigeon Over Seattle
This pigeon did aerial turns and hovers that rivaled a raptor’s. I captured a few frames as she took off from Pike Place Market and hovered for a few seconds against Seattle’s skyline. Thanks to SkeletalMess on Flickr for the Creative Commons texture “Tainted” which I used in the above rendering. Related Pigeon Posts: Lancelot-Guinevere:…
When Godzilla Bought a Tile
I searched for some history on this Pike Place Market tile by Godzilla. Did he cough up $35 in 1985? And does he know Stan and Aina Beckman? I came up, instead, with an interesting piece about the silicon carbide material used for the tiles — and how Market life takes a toll on these…
Getting to Know Seattle (Again)
Hugh and I lived here for a time more than 20 eons ago, so we decided it was time to renew our acquaintance with the emerald north.
