Spring is Here, Spring is Here

Life is skittles and life is beer.

Give a Hoot . . . or Die

I love the shirt they're selling today at Woot.

Woodsy means business. And he's looking at you, punk.

I Have Great Taste In Music

You'll be singing it all day. Or not.

Pretty Little Tyrants

I was waiting for a train. I do that a lot. The tracks are elevated and the platform gives the riders a panoramic view of the parking lot below, as seen through advertising placards. To the left is tree, somehow surviving on a little patch of earth surrounded by concrete and asphalt. A flicker of movement caught my eye; a pair of birds. I lowered my book and stared at them. Perched on branches a few feet apart, they had dark backs and wings, with white chests. Each of their tails ended in a bright, white tip, as if they had been dipped in paint. I smiled slightly and watched them, my book forgotten.

To my left a woman, who had also lowered her book, asked me a question. “Do you know what they are?” “No idea,” I said, sorry that I couldn't help her. I had misunderstood; she didn't need help, she was offering. I am, you may know, The World's Worst Birdwatcher ™. She, it seems, was the real thing.

“They're eastern kingbirds,” she told me. “They feed by taking off, catching a fly, and then going back to the same perch. It's called hawking.” Right on cue, as she said the world “hawking,” one of the birds launched, flew a few feet from the tree, turned sharply, then looped back to the same branch.

I thanked her. I've learned over the years that birders, the real ones, not the “World's Worst” style like me, are kind and generous people, always willing to share their knowledge. I wished I had been more effusive in my thanks, but I just couldn't take my attention away from the birds. One of them flew out, turned around, and then hovered in the same spot for several seconds. It was quietly spectacular. My view was blocked when the train arrived. I briefly considered letting it pass, but I had flies of my own to catch. A pity, I thought, as I was unlikely to see them there again.

I was, of course wrong. A few days later I stood in the same spot and there, on the same tree, were my little friends. Next time I take that train I'll pack my binoculars. They'll probably have moved on by then, but who knows? Not me, certainly.

Hawks

This is a heck of a week. Eleven days between days off and lots of work to do when I'm there. Combine that with pain and infection and I can't say it's been great. Still, I did have one nice moment today. I was walking back to work with a sandwich that I was going to eat at my desk when I heard a distinctive shriek above my head. I looked up, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hawk that had made its presence known. At first I saw nothing but blue sky. Then, soaring high above, was a red tail hawk. Then, below that and streaking down the length of the street, was another. I lost sight of them for a moment and when they again came into view one of them swooped down and attacked the other. It was a quick, slashing attack, over in a moment. Gone again, two hawks showed up seconds later, one above the other. The higher one folded its wings and lost altitude. I assumed it was a resumption of the fight, but when the two birds bumped talons it was slow and almost gentle. Then they flew together, as if in formation. Then a third hawk came into view. And a fourth. The mated pair separated. The four flew among the buildings, coming into and out of sight. Another attack as one hawk dove upon another. The attacked bird was hit and had to struggle a moment to remain airborne. Then it was over -- for me anyway. The birds, not confined to a little patch of ground, moved their dangerous dance to another part of town. It is nice to receive an occasional reminder that the world is a vastly more interesting, beautiful, and exciting place than we can usually see from our workbenches.

Jiggety-Jig

I'm just back from another business trip to southeastern Pennsylvania. I usually expect to see Amish folk with their horses and buggies. I didn't. I usually don't expect to be shoveling a couple of feet of snow. I did.

The trip started badly. I was booked on a flight with AirTran. The night before I was scheduled to take off I checked to see that everything was okay. There had been snow a couple of days ago in the mid-Atlantic, so there was some possibility of delay, but no problem, the flight was listed as being ready to go. Fifteen minutes before I was to leave home I got a phone call. It was AirTran. Psyche! Now I had to scramble to find a way south. I checked the other airlines. None would get me there on time (unless I wanted surpass my annual travel budget on one trip). I checked Amtrak. Nope, nothing I could get now. If the airline hadn't fibbed the night before I might have caught an early train, but too late now. I had to do one of my least favorite things -- drive 390 miles to get to a meeting that was six and a half hours away.

I reserved a car online, walked over to the rental place, then took off. I stopped once at a fast food drive-through for lunch and then twice for quick rest stops. I almost made it before the “low gas” warning light came on. Had to stop for gas just short of my meeting, coasting on fumes. I got there just a little late.

I'm usually a pretty slow driver. Cars zoom by me as I putter along, carefully observing the speed limit. This time I couldn't do that. I generally don't speed for short distances. I was over the speed limit for hours at a stretch this time. Not my idea of fun.

I saw a couple of cool birds. There was a turkey vulture sitting next to some roadside carrion in New York. That may not sound like much to you, but I've never seen a vulture before and I've always wanted to. Amazing damn thing. During the meeting itself someone spotted a hawk and someone else, a better birder than me, identified it for us as a cooper's hawk. It's a beautiful creature and another life bird for me.

The snow began to fall late in the second day of our meeting and kept snowing until late into the night of day three. It was one of the heaviest snows I've seen in quite a while. While it was a serious problem for a lot of Pennsylvanians and for some of my colleagues who found themselves temporarily separated from home and loved ones, it had something of a magical quality to it. It's just not supposed to snow that much in that place. It fell so quickly that the landscape, already white from the major storm just a week before, was transformed. High winds created huge drifts, leaving some spaces with just a few inches and others with several feet. Strange formations were created in this new white world. Lines, curves, and ridges abounded, as if some giant hand had been cutting abstract shapes into the snow. Snow had slipped off the low, peaked roofs over the houses we were sheltered in, then curved up and under the eaves, freezing at impossible angles. Icicles that had been vertical were now nearly horizontal. Winter wonderland indeed.

We drove out on Thursday, me giving a lift to another northbound attendee. Shoveling the cars out was a pretty good chore, even for a New Englander, and the local streets, while they had been plowed in the night, were more packed down than cleared. No problem, just slow driving. The highways were better. Only one major route was closed. That was the one I had planned to be driving on, but not that day. My boss suggested another route and Google gave me the details. I'd be getting out of Dodge on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was mostly okay, but there was a lot of packed down ice on the way. It was pretty rough and occasionally dangerous highway driving all the way to New Jersey. The fine people who take care of the Jersey Turnpike did a better job of clearing their road.

While I was in New Jersey I thought I might sample the local culture, so I pulled off the road at the Woodrow Wilson Service Area. It was named to honor our 28th president. During his administration racial segregation was established in the federal government for the first time in fifty years. He was one of our most well educated presidents, having served as president of Princeton University, where he successfully kept black people from becoming students. The scholar-president wrote several books, including a ten-volume history of the American people, in which he declared his admiration for the Ku Klux Klan. He is today remembered as being a great peacemaker, having been an enthusiastic supporter of The League of Nations and one of the principal authors of the Treaty of Versailles.

He is honored in the state where he served as governor by a service area that presents weary travelers with architectural beauty and a range of fine cuisine choices. I stopped at Roy Rogers and refreshed myself with a cheeseburger, widely known as a “Trigger-burger.” Roy's Fixin's Bar makes it a meal.

North through New Jersey we traveled, and on into New York City. The city, by the way, is still huge. Traffic, on this day after the big snow, was relatively light. As we continued north into Connecticut, snow cover became less and less. By the time we got to Boston it was not there at all. From the snowy south into the sunny north. The weather forecasters had been predicting a big storm for our region too, but even at the worst of the weather the grass was still visible.

Safe again in the land of the bean and the cod I went out for my traditional homecoming meal of a roast beef sandwich and a cup of clam chowder. Then I slept for ten hours. It is always good to be home.

Other Owls, Number Five – Mr. Owl

Yes, that Mr. Owl. Philosopher, pundit, collegian, and corporate shill. Only Mr. Owl has the wisdom to embrace uncertainty. Some would say that by cutting short the experiment by biting into the confection he proved himself unequal to the challenge posed by the boy, but I would defend his actions. First of all, the question was impossible to answer. There can be no final determinant of the how many licks question because of the variables involved. Size, roughness, and wetness of the tongue are just a few of the more significant variables. Mr. Cow*, for example, would surely require fewer licks than, say, Mr. Turtle. By ending the discussion as he did, Mr. Owl pointed out the absurdity of the question. I would also point out that while the spirit of the experiment may have been violated in the view of the boy, Mr. Owl did, in fact, answer the question accurately. Knowing that the answer must be necessarily different depending on the person licking the sweetmeat, he could only give the answer appropriate to his own circumstance. There was nothing in the phrasing of the question that prohibited biting. Therefore, Mr. Owl gave a correct answer in stating that it took only three licks, followed by a bite, to complete the assigned task. Any further effort on his part would be foolish, and Mr. Owl is by no means foolish.



Mr. Owl. Paragon of wisdom and candy fancier.

*And can someone explain Mr. Cow to me? By definition a cow is a female animal, but Mr. Cow is clearly not a female. Who is this gender bending bovine?

Random Passage

Every now and then I run across a passage in a book that just strikes me. Just thought I'd share one with you today.

I'm reading about the Battle of Chickamauga in Shelby Foote's The Civil War. It turned out to be the second bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil, an all-out slugfest along the west bank of the Chickamauga Creek in Georgia.

All morning, here on the Confederate right, the struggle was touch and go, until the beginning was unrememberable and no end seemed possible. All there was was now, a raging fury. When an owl flew up, startled out of a tree by the battle racket, some crows attacked it in flight between the lines. “Moses, what a country!” a soldier exclaimed as he watched. “The very birds are fighting.”

Descent of Birds

I think I've said it before, but one of the things that I enjoy about the study of birds is the way it illustrates the power and beauty of evolution. It was, after all, by observing finches that Darwin got his first inklings of the grand process. Here's an interesting article about how bird feeders are affecting avian evolution before our very eyes.

Other Owls, Number Four – X the Owl

X, good old X. Not much of a name, I'll grant you, but a very fine fellow nonetheless. X, as I'm sure you know, lives in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Neighborhood is something of a misnomer. It is actually a very small kingdom, ruled by a benevolent but absolute monarch, King Friday XIII. The tiny landlocked state has a low birth rate (only two live births have been recored in the last 40 years, one prince and one platypus), but otherwise seems to be a healthy and nurturing environment. The chief export of the area is rocking chairs. The country has no transnational disputes and is considered extremely stable, except for when Lady Elaine Fairchilde causes trouble with her Boomerang-Toomerang-Zoomerang.

X lives in a hollow space in an old oak tree. Unlike most owls, he has a door that covers the opening to his home. The cross beams on the back of the door form an “X,” which is visible when the door is open. It originally was a standard “Z” shaped set, but Handyman Negri, at the request of X, renovated it to be more distinctive.

Living in the same tree is X's neighbor and closest friend, Henrietta Pussycat. She occupies a small house that is secured to a stout branch very near his door. Henrietta has an unusual and somewhat debilitating speech pattern that over the years X has learned to understand. He sometimes acts as her translator. The owl and the pussycat are great friends, and although there have been rumors of a deeper relationship, nothing is known for sure.

X is, I believe, unique in his blue plumage. Most owls have feathers that help them blend into their surroundings, but X has never been one to blend in. He sits in his great tree, a very public owl, always glad to greet a neighbor. Here's to X. Moral exemplar, nifty-galifty owl.

Other Owls, Number Three – Nite Owl

Okay, so this guy isn't really an owl. But I like him.
This is Dan Dreiberg, better known as Nite Owl from Watchmen by Allan Moore and Dave Gibbons. If you only know Watchmen as a movie, you have missed out. It is one of the best books I've ever read. Nite Owl is a character who resonates with the comic book geek that I used to be. An intelligent guy who becomes what he admires most, a costumed crime fighter. Batman became Batman because of an obsession; to avenge the murder of his parents and to terrify the criminal underworld as he had been terrified as a child. Nite Owl became Nite Owl because he wanted to dress up like a bird and do good, flamboyantly. In fact, as we learn in the book, it is only when Dreiberg is behind his mask and fighting evil does he feel fully himself and fully a man. It's a little pathetic and, to me, touching.
Putting the abnormal psychology aside, Nite Owl is a pretty cool superhero. He's broadly in the Batman mold as has no super-human powers but relies on his brains, an array of amazing gadgets, and a gigantic bankroll. His greatest gadget is the Owlship, which he calls Archie (short for Archimedes, the owl in The Sword and the Stone). One of the greatest rides ever, it flew and floated with no visible means of support, was a good thing to have in a fight, and was a total chick magnet.
So here's to Dan Drieberg, for dressing up like an owl and fighting bad guys. How cool is that?

Other Owls, Number Two -- Spooky

If you grew up in the Boston area it is very likely that you've been to the Museum of Science. It was either that best day of the school year, the field trip, or you had parents that gave a damn (or if you were very lucky, both), but you've probably got the tour. You've sat in the Apollo capsule, seen feathers in a vacuum, measured yourself against the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and covered your ears when the Van de Graff generator started to pop. Amidst all the fun you may even have been given the gift of a little knowledge, a sense of wonder, and a curiosity about the cosmos.

If it has been a long time since you were on a field trip to the MOS, you may have had the good fortune to meet Spooky, a great horned owl. From the museum's opening in 1951 until his death in 1989 Spooky was the place's official mascot. He was an ambassador from the natural world and a teacher to thousands of children. I was a very little boy when I saw Spooky. His keeper brought him out to see us and he obligingly stretched his wings to show how big he was. I was greatly impressed. Spooky turned his head in that odd way that owls have. My eyes must have been wide. So were his, of course, and they seemed to see everything. The keeper told us about how owls hunt and how owls eat and all about owl pellets and such. Spooky stood on his perch, looking quite grand. He had heard all this before. He flapped his wings once, unexpectedly. The young audience shuddered. I like to think he was amused.Spooky was 38 years old when he died, which I am told is a record. He was a grand old bird, patient with children, and a good teacher. He may have done more good than he could have ever known.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Thirteen

“I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shown on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; and now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.” -- Henry David Thoreau

Well, I kind of had to go with this quote eventually, didn't I?

Rejoice.

Other Owls, Number One

Today I want to tip my little Robin Hood hat to a great owl, an owl that taught us all to care for our planet. I speak of course of Woodsy Owl.Woodsy holds the distinction of being an official icon of the United States Forest Service. Born in 1970, he has always been a champion of the environment. His motto, “Give a hoot, don't pollute,” echoed through the land and raised a generations of green-minded people. I think a case can be made that if not for Woodsy we would not be where we are now, but instead be wallowing in a pit of industrial filth that we used to call America. Woodsy Owl saved your country and your world.

He did it through tireless and selfless work, making thousands of personal appearances to spread the word. He, of course, became a big TV star:
He even got his own comic book. Woodsy was flying high. Then everything changed.

In the 1990s the Northern Spotted Owl was put on the endangered species list. Lots of folks in the Pacific northwest who relied on the logging industry for their jobs were pretty angry. The image of an owl was suddenly controversial. The Forest Service put Woodsy under wraps, placing him in the mascot version of the witness protection program.

Three years ago it was announced that Woodsy was back. He would be re-introduced to the public at a big ceremony. Al Gore was there to acknowledge this pioneer in the green movement. A hushed crowd waited, the curtain parted . . . and out came this guy.I don't know who this guy is, but he's not Woodsy. Woodsy is an owl, hence the name, Woodsy Owl. This is a guy in a costume. Not even a very good costume. And worse, he doesn't even say “Give a hoot, don't pollute.” His new motto is “Lend a hand – care for the land,” which, frankly, sucks. First of all, it doesn't scan. Second, owls don't have hands. Third, it is a violation of federal law. Really. The law states that Woodsy Owl must “further the slogan 'Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute.'” Since this new character has a new motto, it follows that he is not, in fact, the real Woodsy Owl. Q.E.D.

Where then is Woodsy? That he is being held against his will is obvious. Such a dedicated campaigner for ecology would never just fly the coop. Now, when environmental issues are at the forefront of political debate, when the stakes are the highest they've ever been, is just when someone like Woodsy would step up, rally the forces of goodness and cleanness, and save this planet. I know it, you know it, and so do those who would silence this great bird. Ask the Forest Service. Ask the press. Ask the oil companies, the miners, the loggers, and the biotech industry. Where is Woodsy?

Bird Brains

I've always been fascinated by stories about avian intelligence. Researchers like Irene Pepperberg have shown us that parrot's communication skills may be more than mere mimicry. I love reading things like Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven, which delves into the cognitive abilities of the eponymous bird. As a kid I knew that corvids were pretty bright. Smarter than our cat anyway. Tim, a sloppy old tomcat that lived with us for a while, liked to sit out on the porch railing and soak up the sun. Now and then a blue jay would swoop down in front him. He'd get up on his back legs and make a grab for the bird while another jay would dive in and peck poor Tim on the back of the head. They'd get him every time.

Still, I wasn't too sure about stories I'd heard about songbirds recognizing particular people. Some folks who have a few feeders have said that they are sure that regular visitors to their yards have come to recognize the people who keep the feeders well stocked. That sounded a bit far fetched to me. Crows, maybe, but passerines? Surely they just aren't that bright. As Mrs. Bundy says in The Birds, “their brain pans are not big enough.”

Mrs. Bundy was, of course, horribly wrong. And so, it seems, was I (although less horribly). Scientists at the University of Florida have shown that mockingbirds can recognize particular people, and will attack those they don't like. Remarkable. The study of birds seems to be endlessly rewarding.

Pack is Back

Lovers of literature and statuary around Boston were stunned to hear that one of the duckling statues honoring Robert McCloskey's Make Way For Ducklings had been stolen. Well, maybe not stunned, as this sort of thing has happened before, but none too pleased. Today we have good news as Pack, the missing mallard, has been found. Word is he'll be back with the family in time for the annual Duckling Day Parade, so everything is just . . . well you know.

The Art of Memory

I like to think of memory as a raw material, like clay or paint. It is what it is, but we bend, shape, and smear it into the image that serves us best. Sometimes we do this deliberately, as when we take our memory of someone else's work or idea and use it as part of our own creation, our own new thing. The best fiction, people will tell you, comes from experience of real life, but I remember what a wise professor once told me. “Books,” he said, “come from other books.” Art comes from art. We take that art, bring it into our minds, bend it a little, take things away, add other things, and we have something new. To try to create the wholly new is a folly. Our minds are stuffed with memories. They are the building blocks of human creation.

Humans are not the only creators in this universe. I just read a good book called Why Birds Sing by David Rothenberg. Rothenberg is a musician with the inquiring mind of a scientist and the pen of a poet. He tries to answer the titular question and, in my opinion, forgivably fails. It is too big a question for one consistent answer (it is large, it contains multitudes). The point of reading this book is the journey, not the destination. Which brings me to one of the more interesting stars of Mr. Rothenberg's book, the marsh warbler.

I've never heard a marsh warbler. I'd like to, but I don't have the means to travel across the Atlantic just now. The warbler is a migratory passerine that summers in Europe and winters in southern Africa. It is a mimic and Rothenberg describes it's song thus: “One by one it repeats nearly all the sounds of all the other bird species that live in its habitats, one after another with little recognizable pattern or repetition, packing a few tiny fragments into every second like a bird song identification tape played at double speed.” European ornithologists had identified about half of the warbler's song as being mimicry of other birds. The other half, they assumed, was the warbler's own song. They assumed that until the late 1970s, when Françoise Dowsett-Lemaire followed the bird's migratory path to Africa, listened as she went, and then heard the warbler's song anew. The warbler's journey is a songline that fills the traveling bird's memory with the music of two continents. The songs are borrowed from other sources, but the final version is all the warbler's own. The bird that mimics is not simply a playback machine. It is a careful listener and a deliberate creator.

All art is like that, whether we are conscious of our influences or not. That which we call sui generis is not, in fact, completely new. It is a basic law of physics. Something cannot come from nothing. In striving to make art we take the somethings that we have in our minds, the bits and pieces of memory, and shape and combine them in new ways to create meaning and beauty. If you would be an artist of any kind you must be like the marsh warbler. Pay attention on your journeys. Read widely. Listen intently. Gather up all the culture and nature that you can. Then do something wonderful with it.