hammer or nail? (somewhat gruesome)

I stepped out the house my boss rents for us near The Geysers in NorCal this morning, leaving early to head to the auto parts store (I drive an '81 jeep, this is a common occurrence) then off to work, I walked around the house and saw something I hadn't ever seen before, except on TV. Now the people around here are pretty laid back, dope smoking hippies for the most part, none of the people around this area even cuss (except for the roughnecks I work with, go figure, roughnecks cuss). So what I saw really didn't fit in with the smiling hippies, the jays that eat the birdseed we toss out on the deck, or the deer that wander though the yard. What I saw really brought home the old saying "It is better to be the hammer than the nail".




I belive this to be a juvinle peregrine

Only You

Come on
You, you got, you got
You got what I want
You got, you got, you got what I need
Only you, baby, only you
Only you, you, you, you, you

[/Pendergrass]

The Birds and the Bees (ok, butterflies, not bees)

To be sure though, the title of this post does have a lot to do with sex, well, butterfly sex that is. Today was an interesting combination of effects, this field of alfalfa has been recently cut and baled, leaving it just the right height for ,alfalfa butterflies to mate and lay eggs on (around six inches high), hence, the yellow be-winged hoard that has descended on the Imperial Valley (requires free registration), clogging radiators, and air filters, gooing up windshields, but otherwise looking quite pretty as fields of alfalfa writhe with butterflies as you watch;







and irigation of said field, chasing all the crickets across the field with egrets and pheasant chasing them (wow, is that a run-on sentence or what).

what to do today...

"Gee Brain, what do you want to do today?"
"The same thing we do everyday Pinky, try to take over the world."

birds of a feather....

Went off to the nature center in Springfield Missouri a few weeks ago, took Jacque for a walk on the nature trail and went through the visitor center, they have a bird feeder station and viewing room there, got picture happy while there.

Cardinalis cardinalis,, Northern Cardinal
female

male




Cyanocitta cristata, Bluejay


Felis catus, Lacey, Van house cat....wait a minute, she doesnt belong here...


Meleagris gallopavo, Wild turkey, a tom (jake?)



Sciurus carolinensis, Grey squirrel



Carduelis tristis, American goldfinch





Zenaida macroura, Mourning Dove


Passerina cyanea, Indio Bunting


Archilochus colubris, Ruby Throated Hummingbird


Dryocopus pileatus Pileated Woodpecker (tentitive)

A users guide for cat owning owned geeks

An Almost Rant

This morning, about 4am, I woke up, and turned on the TV to watch a little news, as I got ready for work… just like normal. Every now and then a story will go by that makes me wince, twitch, or just get down right mad. I guess this morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, cause I heard this story (video) and I wanted to scream at the crap spewing from Bruce Malcolm (R, house district 61, Montana).

They need to fit into the rest of Montana’s wildlife, like all the rest of the wild life.
They’re not sacred.
There is nothing about wolf that’s sacred.
He doesn’t need to be treated that way, he needs to come down off the pedestal and fit into the ecosystem, like all the rest of the animals.

My first knee-jerk reaction was to say “what a fucktard, fit into the ecosystem … just like your cattle do, you twit?” There is a reason the word cattle is derived from the word chattel. Representative Malcolm’s losses over the last few years since the reintroduction of wolves, as an apex predator surely amount to a sum of money that I would not want to loose, ~24 cows since the wolves return. But I question that statement.
After spending a few hours bouncing around a 20 mile dirt road this morning (I forgot my laptop at the hotel and had to return to get it, 3 trips down that road in my jeep), draining the blood from my kidneys, and drinking a diet coke, I calmed down. I no longer think of Rep Malcolm as a fucktard, just a man trying to make a living raising beef, and I know that’s not an easy job, I grew up in a rural area. But the part of his words that appear short sighted to me is this: One, he sponsored a bill to reimburse ranchers for cattle lost to wolf predation (signed into law 4/26/07). Second, how many head has he lost, previous to the reintroduction of wolves, to injury and sickness, and how many lost after? (My money is the rate probably dropped, as wolves tend to go after those they can catch, the weak, young, sick, injured, and old) Those losses before would not have been compensated. And Third, how many cattle does he run, that I have no idea, the losses of 24 head may be major, may be minor compared to his total herd. Anyway around it though, I know it sucks to loose money for your job, I don’t like it when it happens to me, so I doubt he does either. But I think his compensated personal loss of a few head of cattle a year, vs. the return of an apex predator to the wild is miniscule. And that has nothing to do with pedestals.

Hawaii fauna, from a geologist point of view

Lots of fascinating critters on the islands of Hawaii, many are native, several are imports (for good or bad (mostly bad from a conservation POV)). Here are a few of them:

finches

not sure what kind of bird this is


mongoose
feral chicken

big red ants
a highly specialized moth

mosquito (start Dracula accent)"I vant to suck your blood"(end accent)

large land snail, maybe 3-4 inches long
European honey bee
dove
annoying Porto Rica import, the Coque frog (juveniles, adult call can get up to 100db)

late instar husk of a dragonfly nymph, post emergence
dragon fly (now this was a hard to get pic, these guys are fast and always in motion)

fauna 3, moths, lots of moths

most of these beasts are really quite large, this first moth has a span over six inches


this little critter was the smalles, at just over an inch


this one is about two inches


this little beasty ran about 3-3.5 inches