Remember This One?

I remembered this post about a pesty cat micturating upon a 15th century scribe’s book; it did the rounds a few years ago.  “Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night.  Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others too.  And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.”

What I didn’t remember was that this was a translation.  The original script was in Latin.  “Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam.  Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum.  Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi catti venire possunt.”

So if you wanna curse a pesty cat in Latin, just remember “confundatur pessimus cattus.”

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cute animals, seal hijinks

remember when that seal slapped a kayaker with an octopus?  apparently owner of video was content to make it a gopro commercial, but still, fascinating.

reminiscent of when those seals in hawaii had a juvenile fad of getting an eel stuck up one nostril.  the behavior of some weird mer-dogs, being weird.  remarkable.

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Phantom Birding

Heard about the possible ivory-billed woodpecker trailcam footage?  It’s the best hope anyone’s had in a long time of showing the extinct bird to have some kind of continued existence.  Or is it?  My money’s on fuck no, rufk?  This bird is the USA’s thylacine – a thing of dreams whose sad reality is well understood by the knowledgeable.

But there are ways of confirming this, besides repeated sightings or capturing a specimen.  Ivory-billed are not very closely related to pileated woodpeckers, despite appearances.  They are likely another case of the recently documented phenomenon of look-alike woodpeckers around the world.  And without a close relative in the neighborhood, some kind of trace environmental DNA (eDNA) could be a smoking gun.

In my own neck of the world, I am not interested in hunting ghosts, but I am discovering the magic of invisible birdies.  There’s a birding app that identifies bird calls.  Just recently started using it, and discovered there at least several species living in my neighborhood that I’ve never seen, or only glimpsed long ago.  If I practiced my ear enough, I could experience them all the time – at least as long as they’re singing.

So if you live in my suburb, about halfway between Seattle and Tacoma, you would see crows, seagulls, pigeons, starlings, and dark-eyed juncos every day.  Very often you’ll see chickadees, robins, mallards, and canada geese – which may include cackling geese, I’m ill-practiced at telling the difference.  Less often you’ll see great blue-herons, coots, steller’s jays, white-crowned sparrows, spotted towhees, northern flickers, red-breasted nuthatches, bushtits, red-winged blackbirds, red-tailed hawks, house finches (&/or purple finches, I can’t tell the diff), or – downtown – house sparrows.  Less often still, goldfinches, about four species of woodpecker, a few types of swallows and swifts, cedar waxwings, killdeer, and a few species of owls, bald eagles, ospreys, and cormorants.  I have very rarely seen a western tanager or belted kingfisher.

But apparently golden-crowned kinglets are still doing well for themselves.  The app got their number.  I haven’t seen one in several years, but there are little flocks hiding in the trees.  A type of tree-trunk-crawling weirdo called the brown creeper is also getting along very well, in areas of thicker forest.  Bewick’s wrens are everywhere, marsh wrens in any given stretch of wetland.  There’s a bird so common in town it must have numbers to rival the much more visible guys – song sparrows are making noise everywhere.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.

More surprising to me are the black-headed grosbeaks.  Never seen anything like them, and apparently, they’re common here, especially where there are more trees.  Also the warblers.  Black-throated gray warblers and wilson’s warblers are in any forested spot, usually completely unnoticed by me.  This is where I stop recounting boring lists of birds and start recounting my sins.

You’re not supposed to play bird songs on your phone to summon birds.  This is a thing you can do, but it’s rude to the birds, and can waste their precious survival resources.  I played back the song of wilson’s warbler just to hear it, and one came out of the forest to find out who the fuck I am.  Sorry little bro, I am not a wilson’s warbler.  But it was so cute I’m sorely tempted to do this again.

But I won’t.  Pinky swear.
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No Problem Tuesdays, 26th April 2016

Image of a cartoon devil winking out a star and making the OK sign, with text "no problem tuesdays."
          This image is an homage to chickensnack comix‘s famous dog, redrawn by me to fit the theme.

In honor of an esteemed tumblr meme, I like to keep Tuesdays positive. Today I had some thoughts and observations that felt deep, but they are related to problems. So, have a video of amusing outtakes from a David Attenborough BBC nature show, plus a description of the video that is worthy of reading, whether you hit play or not:

Tumblr user sententiola added a transcript for accessibility purposes, and it was brilliant:

[Video of venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough standing amid vegetation. On a near-horizontal branch above his head is a brown and yellow greater bird of paradise, about the size of a crow, with big floaty yellow plumage puffing out along its back.]

Bird: Pwuk. Pwuk.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely –
Bird (hopping along the branch): WUKWUKWUkwukwukwukoooh. Oooh. Oooh.

[Cut. Same shot.]

Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely, is one –
Bird: Kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark kark.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: This, surely –

[Cut. Same shot but the bird is on the other side now and venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough has his hand on the branch.]

Bird (hopping up and down on venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough’s fingers): Eh-eh. Eh-eh. Eh-urrrr. Eh-urrrr.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Close up –
Bird (hopping away from him): Tiktiktiktik. Tiktiktiktik.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – the plumes –
Bird (hopping around): Huek.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – are truly –
Bird: Huek.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – exquisite.
Bird: Huek. Eh-eh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: The gauzy –
Bird (hopping and spinning on the spot): HukWUKWUKWukwukoooh. Oooh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: …

[Cut. Same shot but the bird is back on the original side of the branch.]

Bird: Aark.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: Of course, by the eighteenth century –
Bird: Ehhh.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – naturalists realized that birds of paradise –
Bird (hops across to the other side of the branch)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – did have –
Bird (hopping back again): Krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – legs. Even so –
Bird: WUKWUKWUKWukwukwukooh.

[Cut. Same shot.]
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (apparently trying to tickle the bird’s tummy): – by about the eighteenth century –
Bird (hops away and spins round)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – and so –
Bird: AAAAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK AAAK aaak.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough (wearily): … Very well.

[Cut. Same shot.]

Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – but Karl Linnaeus, the great –
Bird (vibrating rapidly on the spot and then flapping its wings): PWAAAAAAAK.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – classifier of the natural world –
Bird: AAAAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAAUUUH AAUUH.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – when he came to allocate a scientific name –
Bird: …
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – to this bird –
Bird: …
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – called it –
Bird: Wooo-ooo.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – wooo-ooo –
Bird (surveys the surroundings with a dignified turn of the head)
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: ‘paradisia apoda’: the bird of paradise –
Bird: Hoooo.
Venerable TV naturalist David Attenborough: – without legs.
Bird: Eh-eh.

[Close-up of the bird.]

Bird: WUKWUKWUKWUkwukwukwukwukoooh. Ooh.
Bird: Ooh.

[Fade to black.]

Good job, sir. We salute you. And thanks to the Beeb for the video.

No Problem Tuesdays, 19th April 2016

Image of a cartoon devil winking out a star and making the OK sign, with text "no problem tuesdays."
          This image is an homage to chickensnack comix‘s famous dog, redrawn by me to fit the theme.

In honor of an esteemed tumblr meme, I like to keep Tuesdays positive. Once again, I’m at a loss for doing anything original, so here is an image set of Berenice the Cat and Lucy the Dog, photographs owned by Diana Hafemann. Said the caption on tumblr, “They are the best of best friends and they are always together.” Also, with those names, it’s safe to assume their owner is a gothtacular nerd. That’s a good thing.

snuggly cat and dog friends

Lucy and Berenice ©Diana Hafemann


[Read more…]

No Problem Tuesdays, 15th March 2016

Image of a cartoon devil winking out a star and making the OK sign, with text "no problem tuesdays."
          This image is an homage to chickensnack comix‘s famous dog, redrawn by me to fit the theme.

In honor of an esteemed tumblr meme, I would like to keep Tuesdays positive. I can’t think of anything to write this week, so I’ll just post a cute and funny thing I saw on that site recently. Still getting used to the interface here, so hopefully much more to look at or read next Tuesday.

tweet by trashwtch of two pretty dogs with a funny caption
Tweet from “trashwtch” (twitter deleted) of two long-haired slender white dogs lounging together on grass, text: “what kind of dogs are these, they make me nervous like if I talk to them they’ll speak back but only in riddles”