I greatly enjoyed your "Winter Bird Edition" and particularly the part of the rough-legged hawks, including the spectacular photo of one. I live in Ohio and one lives somewhere in the trees behind my home. I don't spot it very often, but occasionally it roosts in a buckeye tree on my lawn and I've managed to get some nice photos and videos of it. It is majestic and muscular.
I don’t think that I have ever been as close to one of these birds, as I was on that day. Such a shame that I didn’t have the availability to spend more time with it. Here in the north I’m waiting now for at least a couple of Snowy Owls to appear so I can enjoy those during the cold months.Glad you liked my winter Bird edition.
Richard: I am fortunate in that the tree it sometimes has rested upon is just outside one of my windows. Here is a still photo (not as sharp as your photos since it was taken through the window). But you can see that it was quite close to the window.
I agree entirely with your thoughts about entomology, I did a Botany degree, and we only had one (week long) field trip a year and only a couple of options for field based projects in our final year. The university I attended no longer even has a full Botany department, but has plenty of molecular biology etc.
It is, sadly, the way of the world. In my early career I was running a lab session for undergraduates who were doing a degree in immunology. Step one was "remove the thymus" and several had to be shown where it was ... up to that point they had never encountered anatomy but were whizzes at what the thymus did, just couldn't locate it. My wife is a botanist and understands where you are coming from. There is hope in some corners of the world though - today I live next door to a McGill University campus that has students doing field work seemingly from dawn to dusk.
"Well, I would have been quite happy as a Victorian vicar, and I much prefer the field and the musty old collection cabinet to the bright lights and humming machines of the lab.".
I can sympathize with that disposition, Richard. A delightful image and I wonder what rôle I would have played in that scenario? Something that would have involved considerable pub time I wager though I am completely abstinent this life.
Living here near the Salish Sea and our endangered small number of remaining Orca whales and so many other rare remaining bits of our much loved flora and fauna, I have tried to brace myself for this time of loss, for my whole life. Even so I could never have dreamed that one such as Trump could have such power to sway so many of my fellow humans. I have watched it happening and have no understanding of why it is so. I am sick at heart for what is about to happen without one bit of serious protest, let alone shame. Those with the power and love of their piled up wealth appear to love nothing else. They have cut themselves off from nature, beauty and all that stirs emotion. Meanwhile creating a following of those who are like minded. They separate mothers from their children and are not called to account for such unthinkable actions at another time. They convince themselves that they know who other people are simply by their color and heritage. How much less could they see of animals, trees or their surroundings. The spell is cast. Is there anything that can break it?
Absolutely - here in Montreal we are less than a hour's drive from the US and look on in wonder at how it could happen. This too shall pass is about all you can think right now.
I think it is important to lift our spirits and after my earlier post which has such doom I thought I would share this moment that I posted somewhere else today.
We had a daytime storm pass though our area yesterday with heavy rain and wind and moments of brilliant sunshine. I happened to look out at the beautiful break in the storm and saw the biggest cloud angel I have ever seen. And she was moving swiftly from the south to the north. So big that I had to turn my head to take her all in! Beautifully formed with flowing gown and feathered wings and a trumpet!!! It would not have surprised me to hear her music if I had stepped outside. She was moving fast with a cross current blowing below her of little wisps of clouds seeming to lift her. All of this was happening rather close to the land. In a minute or two at most it was all gone and the sky was dark with the next round of heavy rain. But I somehow was lifted by that moment to be reminded that things can change in an instant.
I greatly enjoyed your "Winter Bird Edition" and particularly the part of the rough-legged hawks, including the spectacular photo of one. I live in Ohio and one lives somewhere in the trees behind my home. I don't spot it very often, but occasionally it roosts in a buckeye tree on my lawn and I've managed to get some nice photos and videos of it. It is majestic and muscular.
I don’t think that I have ever been as close to one of these birds, as I was on that day. Such a shame that I didn’t have the availability to spend more time with it. Here in the north I’m waiting now for at least a couple of Snowy Owls to appear so I can enjoy those during the cold months.Glad you liked my winter Bird edition.
Richard: I am fortunate in that the tree it sometimes has rested upon is just outside one of my windows. Here is a still photo (not as sharp as your photos since it was taken through the window). But you can see that it was quite close to the window.
I agree entirely with your thoughts about entomology, I did a Botany degree, and we only had one (week long) field trip a year and only a couple of options for field based projects in our final year. The university I attended no longer even has a full Botany department, but has plenty of molecular biology etc.
It is, sadly, the way of the world. In my early career I was running a lab session for undergraduates who were doing a degree in immunology. Step one was "remove the thymus" and several had to be shown where it was ... up to that point they had never encountered anatomy but were whizzes at what the thymus did, just couldn't locate it. My wife is a botanist and understands where you are coming from. There is hope in some corners of the world though - today I live next door to a McGill University campus that has students doing field work seemingly from dawn to dusk.
"Well, I would have been quite happy as a Victorian vicar, and I much prefer the field and the musty old collection cabinet to the bright lights and humming machines of the lab.".
I can sympathize with that disposition, Richard. A delightful image and I wonder what rôle I would have played in that scenario? Something that would have involved considerable pub time I wager though I am completely abstinent this life.
Living here near the Salish Sea and our endangered small number of remaining Orca whales and so many other rare remaining bits of our much loved flora and fauna, I have tried to brace myself for this time of loss, for my whole life. Even so I could never have dreamed that one such as Trump could have such power to sway so many of my fellow humans. I have watched it happening and have no understanding of why it is so. I am sick at heart for what is about to happen without one bit of serious protest, let alone shame. Those with the power and love of their piled up wealth appear to love nothing else. They have cut themselves off from nature, beauty and all that stirs emotion. Meanwhile creating a following of those who are like minded. They separate mothers from their children and are not called to account for such unthinkable actions at another time. They convince themselves that they know who other people are simply by their color and heritage. How much less could they see of animals, trees or their surroundings. The spell is cast. Is there anything that can break it?
Absolutely - here in Montreal we are less than a hour's drive from the US and look on in wonder at how it could happen. This too shall pass is about all you can think right now.
I think it is important to lift our spirits and after my earlier post which has such doom I thought I would share this moment that I posted somewhere else today.
We had a daytime storm pass though our area yesterday with heavy rain and wind and moments of brilliant sunshine. I happened to look out at the beautiful break in the storm and saw the biggest cloud angel I have ever seen. And she was moving swiftly from the south to the north. So big that I had to turn my head to take her all in! Beautifully formed with flowing gown and feathered wings and a trumpet!!! It would not have surprised me to hear her music if I had stepped outside. She was moving fast with a cross current blowing below her of little wisps of clouds seeming to lift her. All of this was happening rather close to the land. In a minute or two at most it was all gone and the sky was dark with the next round of heavy rain. But I somehow was lifted by that moment to be reminded that things can change in an instant.