We’re halfway through 2022 and WC can’t even get the year right in his documents. Heck, half the time WC can’t even get the day of the week right. But, ready or not, it’s time to have a look back at the last month, touching on developments, worrying about missed stuff and working through whatever…
The Alaska Constitution was written in 1955, near the height of the anti-Communist hysteria that gripped the United States. It was the peak of the McCarthy Era. While the state constitution is mercifully free of much of the political baggage that attended that dark time, there are places where the hysteria plainly crept in. Article…
This post inaugurates a new semi-regular series, Most Memorable Moments, featuring some of the most memorable natural history experiences that WC has been lucky enough to enjoy. Sometimes nature can be magical and memorable, and, yes, it’s still magical even when you know how and why it works. The Madre de Dios River, a tributary…
BUCIP is the acronym for Big, Ugly, Complicated and Intractable Problem. One of Alaska’s BUCIPs is northwest Alaska’s Red Dog Mine. Most readers will have never heard of Red Dog Mine, but it’s the largest zinc mine in North America, as well as a very significant source of lead, silver and cadmium. It’s located in…
Winston regrets his purchase of a Corvette: “I’ve decided I don’t like the car I bought last year. I want to return it and get my money back.” Clyde is disappointed with his lottery ticket: “My ticket didn’t win anything; I want my money back.” Janet and Dave met with their bank loan officer. “We…
The Clay-colored Thrush is the American Robin of Central America: widely distributed, common to abundant across its range and adapted to areas of human disturbance. It’s a bit drab, even for a thrush, with a brown back and a paler brown chest and belly – clay-colored, yellowish bill and grayish to pinkish legs. Even if…
Warning: Serious biological technogeekery ahead. For much of earth’s history, the only form of life was single-cell, primitive bacteria. Those early primitive cells are called prokaryotes. Basically, they were small sacks of fluid with the contents mixed together, higgedly-piggedly. Sometime about 1.5 billion years ago, a few lucky prokaryotes ingested or otherwise acquired another cell…
We’re talking about camera noise here, and specifically digital camera noise. A reader recently asked what “color noise” is and why it was objectionable in photos. “Noise” – and there are various types of noise that can afflict a digital camera – is random data you don’t want in your photos. There are different things…
This handsome fellow was enjoying a nice lunch as WC drove up. The bird is backlit, and wearing jewelry, but it’s still a treat to get a tight shot on an Osprey with a fish. Or at least what’s left of a fish; the bird’s bulging crop shows you where the rest of the fish…
WC first met Jim Hayes on a basketball court. Hayes was the starting center for the Lathrop Malemutes; WC was a very skinny Junior Varsity player, just a few weeks away from washing out of even the JV team, and gave away some 60-70 pounds and six inches to Hayes, who was a mass of…
Birders prize backroads, the little-used dirt tracks that wind through environmentally healthy habitat. There are birds close to the road, the absence of traffic makes it easy to stop and glass any birds, and the birds are less likely to be spooked by other cars. But in Idaho, too many of those back roads aren’t…
It’s hardly a secret that the Matanuska-Susitna Valley faces a number of grave problems: substance abuse, failing schools, appalling levels of sexual assault and entrenched bigotry and racism, to name just a few. Which makes the recent decision by the Mat-Su School District to focus on a non-existent problem both a further demonstration of bigotry…
It’s not much of a photo. Not only is the bird obviously on a feeding station; it was taken with WC’s first digital single lens reflex camera, an Olympus E-1, using a low quality 50-200mm zoom lens with an even lower quality 1.4 teleconverter. To get the shutter speed up to a still too slow…
Sure, any number of bad things seem to come out of Texas: Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, piss-poor utility planning, George Bush, Louie Gohmert, Alex Jones, pawn shop chain stores, oil spills; it’s a very, very long list, and WC doesn’t want to trigger anyone by attempting to set it all out. Least of all himself.…
WC bows to no one in his fervor for technology and the latest and greatest. WC’s technogeekery credentials go back to the early 1970s, programming an HP-12C to generate mortgage repayment tables. But at the same time, WC recognizes that technology has its risks, its foibles and its disasters. Which is why there are irregular…
WC dragged his visiting brother on June 8 to an all-day trip to Camas Prairie and Centennial Marsh. To his surprise and WC’s, we had a lot of fun. Here are a few photos and notes from the trip. Camas Lilies don’t appear in any numbers every year; it takes a little extra water. This…
Several readers have asked WC what he thinks is at the heart of all the problems facing America. It’s more than one thing, of course. But with this post, WC concludes this semi-regular series, which has used mostly photographs to illustrate the problems. Here’s Part 1; here’s Part 2; here’s Part 3; here’s Part 4.…
“Raptors” is the imprecise word that WC uses for falcons, hawks, eagles and buzzards. East Asia – or at least Thailand – seems to have a much greater variety of raptors than the New World. Here’s a selection of seven or so that WC photographed in Thailand this year and some brief notes on each.…
WC notes that the Utah County, Utah Sheriff has accused the Utah County District Attorney of being among the pedophile, child-eating Democrats. The Utah County Sheriff is an enthusiastic QAnon supporter and the QAnon nut jobs, of course, think that Democrats have a secret, nationwide ring of cannibalistic pedophiles who feast on young children. WC…
“There will come a point when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” — Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Vice Chair, House Select Committee on January 6, 2021 Insurrection WC is no fan of Rep. Liz Cheney’s position on most issues, but cannot question her courage, her honesty and her responsibility to her oath…
This is another of the Nightingale-Thrushes of Central and South America. This species is found from Central Mexico to Costa Rica and the western edge of Panama. It’s found mostly in the cloud forest and adjacent disturbed area where it forages on the ground and in the understory for insects, seeds and berries. It’s found…
The Great Egret lives and breeds on all of the continents save Antarctica. It’s by no means the largest heron, but it’s arguably the most widely distributed. And its recovery from near-extirpation in North America is an example of how bird populations can be saved from human folly. WC has been lucky enough to see…
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy still hasn’t removed WC from his reelection campaign mailing list. The latest fibs arrived last Friday. As far as WC can tell, the Legislature enacted the PFD that Dunleavy is claiming credit for despite Dunleavy’s best efforts to frustrate the process. After all, Dunleavy wanted a much bigger dividend, $6,700, and…
Several readers have asked WC what he thinks is at the heart of all the problems facing America. It’s more than one thing, of course. But with this post, WC continues his semi-regular series, using mostly photographs to illustrate the problem. Here’s Part 1; here’s Part 2; here’s Part 3. This is another case where…
There are some 59 species of Hornbills, spread across 14 genera, all found exclusively in the Old World, from the East Indies to West Africa. What the family Bucerotidae have in common is an extravagant bill, often capped with a horn structure called a casque. Mind you, not as extravagant as the New World’s Toucans,…
WC has only seen three wolverines the wild. And none of them resulted in a photo. WC saw the first on the third day of a torrential rainstorm, washed out of an attempt to climb Scott Peak, hiking out down Sunset Creek in Denali National Park. That wolverine was loping steadily upstream – the gait…
Ninety percent of what I made went to women, whiskey, drugs and cars. I guess I just wasted the other 10 percent. Ronnie Hawkins, “Last of the Good Ol’ Boys,” 1989 The Hawk is dead. Ronnie Hawkins, Arkansas native and Canadian transplant died May 29 after a long illness. The epitome of rockabilly music, he…
A close cousin to last week’s Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush, this is another of the eight Catharus Nightingale-Thrushes. The species has the smallest range of that genus, extending across the highlands of central Costa Rica and into the mountains of western Panama. Within that range it is confined to the higher slopes, from about 1,800 meters up…
Another school shooting. Nineteen small children killed. Two teachers killed. Sixteen more students wounded. In a sane world, this kind of carnage would result in an outright ban on the semiautomatic weapons that the sick perps use. Instead, those who attempt to defend the indefensible trundle out the same old, tired arguments. WC can’t graft…
This post is for WC’s friend, Nils Warnock, a consummate birder. He has forgotten more about birds and birding than WC will ever learn. He has carte blanc to correct all of WC’s errors. To misquote Calvin and Hobbs, there are about a bazillion flycatchers. Among the Tyrannidae, the New World’s Tyrant Flycatchers alone, there…
Wickersham's Conscience 
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