Readers will recall that we are currently focusing on new birds in families of bird species that WC has posted about earlier. WC visited Thrushes, the Turdidae, a couple of years ago. Here’s a new thrush from that family of birds. The Rufous-bellied Thrush is a resident of open forest, pampas and agricultural land from…
WARNING: Avian-centric blog post ahead. The issues discussed apply to most flora and fauna. WC is focused (sorry) on Aves, the birds. Birding and especially bird listing are built around the concept of “species,” different kinds of birds. The concept was formalized by Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus, who first established the field of taxonomy in…
It’s been a while since WC sat down and answered readers’ questions and, in a few cases, non-questions. As always, WC will ignore scurrilous personal attacks, dubious investment opportunities, phishing efforts and inquiries from alleged ladies offering their intimate charms. How can I subscribe to Wickersham’s Conscience?You can receive email notification of each new blog…
Colombia is famous among birders. It has the most species of birds of any country in the world, some 1,904 species, about 20% of all the species of birds in the world. About 84 of those bird species are endemics, meaning Colombia is the only country in the world in which they are found. For…
WC appreciates Congressman Mike Simpson’s (R, Idaho) efforts on behalf of Idaho’s beleaguered wild salmon. His advocacy for the removal of the lower four Snake River Dams in support of wild salmon recovery represents a significant and risky investment of his political capital. But that’s pretty much the only thing that WC appreciates about Rep.…
It wasn’t the first time the line was used – it traces back to the late 19th Century – but the best known instance is from the Marx Brothers classic, Duck Soup, where there’s this exchange between the actress Margaret Dumont playing Mrs. Gloria Teasdale and Chico Marx playing Chicolini: Teasdale: Your Excellency, I thought…
WC notes that Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador has re-filed his silly lawsuit challenging the Idaho Open Primary Initiative, despite being slapped down by the Idaho Supreme Court. Slapped down twice, in fact. Most recently, the Idaho Supreme Court threw out his legal challenge to Idaho’s Open Primary Initiative, saying “The attorney general’s petition fundamentally…
Readers will recall that we are currently focusing on new birds in families of bird species that WC has posted about earlier. WC visited Blackbirds, the Icteridae, a couple of years ago. Here’s a second Cacique from that family of birds. Red-rumped Caciques are a glossy, blue-black bird with a red rump and lower back…
The musicians who made the soundtrack for WC’s youth are are dying. There’s been too many lately to allow WC to write each the obituary they deserve without turning this blog into a full time obituary page. So at the risk of a disservice to the memory of musicians WC loved, here are some notes…
Earlier this week, WC attended the Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s presentation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the last of the “early Comedies” the Bard wrote, first presented in 1594-1595. WC is an unapologetic Shakespeare fan, thanks to high school English teacher Eve Kozloski and Drama Director Gene DeWild. Among the comedies, Midsummer Night is one…
WARNING. This post is a little gruesome. You’re going to watch a caiman – a cousin to a crocodile – munch down quite a large fish. If you’re easily upset by some of nature’s more gory aspects, skip this blog post. Caiman, carnivorous amphibians related to alligators, are native to the streams, rivers and lakes…
In October 1968, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon was worried that he was being overtaken in the polls by the Democratic candidate, then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey. So Nixon resorted to treason. He deliberately sabotaged the Vietnam War peace effort by President Lyndon Johnson. Through his chief of staff and hatchet man, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, he…
Former Alaska Republican Chairwoman Ann Brown had another opinion piece (sometimes paywalled) in the Anchorage Daily News last Thursday. In her 200 word essay she wanders through an attack on the Harris-Walz campaign, the struggles of small lumber mills in Oregon, and a cheap attack on U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola (Alaska, Democrat). It would take…
There was a time, back when WC was an undergraduate, when WC thought that National Lampoon‘s “Deteriorata” was a decent summary of the world, or at least an apt reflection of WC’s world view. And it was a fine anodyne to the saccharine sweet “Desiderata” of the previous year. It comes to mind because it…
Readers will recall that we are currently focusing on new birds in families of bird species that WC has posted about earlier. WC visited Blackbirds, the Icteridae, a couple of years ago. Here’s an additional member of that family of birds. There’s a whole genus of the Icteridae, the Cacius, the Caciques. Through bad luck,…
It’s impossible to understand the geology of southern Idaho without understanding a bit about bimodal volcanism. And it’s not possible to talk about bimodal volcanism without first understanding that all lavas, all volcanic rocks, really, are not the same. The fast-flowing rivers of lava in the Hawaiian Islands, for example, are very different than the…
Yes, it’s a vulgar word but, nonetheless, it was the American Dialect Society‘s 2023 Word of the Year. It’ a neologism, coined in November 2022 by the inescapable Cory Doctorow. It means a pattern of changing priorities where online product and service providers exhibit a decline in quality over time. You see it as as platforms transition through predictable stages:…
WC thinks there is reasonably clear evidence that Trump is moving further into delusional thinking. Here are five of his more recent lies; WC suspect he isn’t the only one who sees a pattern. Trump’s Claim The Facts Type of Lie At his press conference on August 8, 2024, describing his speech to supporters on…
WC admires a certain kind of scientist, one who upends accepted knowledge and thereby solves a previously intractable problem. Often, that involves facing a torrent of criticism and abuse from supporters of accepted understandings of the problem. J. Robin Warren, MD, an obscure Western Australian pathologist, is one of those scientists. Before the work of…
The Matanuska-Susitna School District includes Wasilla. On April 13, 2023, the school district announced that in response to “public concern both in the [District] and nationally” about the “types of library materialsavailable in school libraries” the school district was “reviewing library collection policies and . . . individual books.” Citizen complaints about the content of…
Utah and Wyoming have sued the federal government, claiming that the sky is falling. Or at least that implementation of the BLM’s new Public Lands Rule will cause the sky to fall. Metaphorically. If you don’t like WC’s Chicken Little metaphor, then here’s a Shakespearean one instead: Much Ado About Nothing. The Bureau of Land…
Readers will recall that we are currently focusing on new birds in families of bird species that WC has posted about earlier. WC visited Blackbirds, the Icteridae, a couple of years ago. Here’s an additional member of that family of birds. The Pale Baywing has a complicated history as a species. Originally, there was a…
A reader asked why Return of Bird of the Week doesn’t ever do flycatchers. There are many . . . challenges . . . to flycatchers. Here are a few of them. All that said, WC will doubtless get around to a few months of flycatchers at some point in the future. Although they probably…
The pursuit of gold is a European affliction verging on delerium — Alexander von Humboldt, Kosmos, Volume 2, p. 339 Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He’s one of WC’s heroes. And he is nearly unknown in the United States today. But President Thomas Jefferson, whom…
WC bows to no one when it comes to technogeekery. WC has owned an embarrassing amount of electronics, beginning with an Apple II Plus in 1976 and continuing through a Canon R5 Digital Mirrorless camera, a much more powerful computer than that old Apple II. But at the risk of being accused of Ludditeism in…
Mark Harris is the Idaho state senator for the Soda Springs area, in southeastern Idaho. The phosphate mines there are Soda Springs’ primary industry. There’s also a glyphosate factory at the mine; glyphosate – N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine, a biocide – is the active ingredient in Roundup™ and is manufactured with the phosphorus mined in Soda Springs.…
A reader asked why WC was so critical of Canadian mining companies that propose to develop mines in Idaho. Why, the reader asked, does WC dislike Canadians? The context for the question is WC’s opposition to the proposed CuMo Project, in the headwaters of the Boise River, which is being developed by MultiMet, a Canadian…
Pika are Lagomorphs, the same order of mammals as rabbits and hares. In fact, an alternate name for North American pikas is Rock Rabbit. Their preferred habitat is rocky slopes at or near the treeline. North America boasts two species of Pika, the American Pika, found in the mountain of the western U.S., and the…
Readers will recall that we are currently focusing on new birds in families of bird species that WC has posted about earlier. WC visited Gulls and Terns, the Laridae, a couple of years ago. Here’s an additional member of that family of birds. Living and birding in Alaska, WC is used to seeing birds in…
There was a recent Doonesbury cartoon in which ex-President Trump, speaking to a crowd of billionaires invites “My Aileen” to say a few words to the audience. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s voice comes from the pocket of Trump’s tuxedo: “Uh. Hi, everyone.” In a display of his power, Trump immediately interrupts, “That’s enough.” and…
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