WC isn’t a huge fan of Broadway and the American musical. Mrs. WC takes WC to a touring show from time to time, most recently to the Book of Mormon. But WC was actually looking forward to seeing The Lion King, the most successful Broadway musical – at least when measured by revenue – in history. For…
It’s a commentary on how clueless WC can be that when asked last month how many bird species he had photographed WC guessed maybe 700. Yesterday the count was 1,010. With a significant number of photo libraries still to be counted. Most of those photos are pretty crappy. That’s not a serious factor in the…
The Cattle Egret’s range expansion is extraordinary. A bird of the African Savannah, it migrated to South America in at the boundary of Guiana and Suriname in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic Ocean. The species became established there in the 1930s. By 1941, it was seen in Florida and by 1953 it was breeding…
WC used to get quite a lot of email from a reader who was deeply concerned about possible radiation from the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster reaching Alaska and the west coast of North America. Right concern; wrong ocean and wrong point source. The islands of North and South Novaya Zemlya in the Kara Sea, north of…
Carroll Spinney, who originated and played Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for 50 years, is retiring. There’s a very nice biographical sketch in the New York Times. There’s an equally wonderful press release from Sesame Workshop. Thanks, Mr. Spinney. You helped a lot of kids dream; you helped a lot of kids fly.…
WC took a few days off from the bird species count for a road trip, likely the final camping trip of the year. Here’s a pro tip for RV owners: don’t even try to drive on a freeway in 35 mph winds with gusts to 50 mph, not even a short distance. Just. Don’t. Except…
Remember Frank Murkowski? He was a mostly ineffective U.S. Senator, and after that the Governor who presided over the biggest corruption scandal in Alaska’s history. He was the President and CEO of Alaska National Bank when the decisions were made that led to that bank’s failure.1 He’s the guy who appointed his daughter to succeed…
Geologic time can be beyond human comprehension. Sure, geologists have broken it into units: periods, epochs and stages, but it is still mind-numbingly vast. And at the same time, just a bit facile. Let’s use the Oligocene Epoch as an example. On the one hand, in terns of the history of the planet, the period…
Donald Trump promised us his administration would hire “the best people, the very best. Not the biggest donors or biggest supporters.” As a service to readers, WC provides this updated summary table of how that’s working out. Spoiler alert: Not so good. Note this is only a partial list. As investigations proceed, WC will continue…
“Plumbeous” means “lead-like,” and while the Plumbeous Rail’s body is dark grey, the bill and legs more than make up for the drab body. It’s not the best quality photo, but it’s a high-quality bird. It’s a widely distributed Rail, ranging from southern Ecuador to Tierra del Fuego. It’s also one of the easier rails…
WC continues to slog through a lot of pretty bad photos from a 2009 trip to Ecuador. About two-thirds of the way through 8,000 image library, WC has discarded about 4,000 photos. Whatever other lessons WC is learning from this experience, it’s clear that (a) the conversion from film to digital made WC shutter-happy, with…
WC’s effort to count the number of bird species he’s photographed continues. All the photos from Peru, Antarctica, Oaxaca, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and the Galapagos have been reviewed. More than half have been discarded. The process necessarily slows down as you start running into duplicates. And it took about three hours to sort out…
