Take a second look …
The yellow eyes of the Saw-whet Owl are so startling, their gaze so steady, that we tend to ignore everything else. It’s easy to miss the trace of blood just below the owl’s bill, a smear of something that changes the way we look at the bird, that deepens our understanding of it. What discoveries might we make if we took that second look more often, if we trained ourselves to see?
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Summer Birds, 1
Walking on the Leslie Street Spit last week, I came upon a pair of Canada Geese. They were belligerent. Hissing and blocking the path, they refused to let me pass. I soon saw why. A gosling sat in the weeds just off the path, and the parent birds wanted to protect it from me. The goslings are attractive in a way the mature birds can’t match, the plumage a glowing shade of yellow and the feathers all soft and fuzzy. I’m tempted to call them cute, but if I dig down past the cliché to get at the root of … Read more
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Moths, an introduction
With butterflies, it’s color that attracts us first, but with moths, it’s their names. Just to scratch the surface, to get a hint of what they offer in North America, let the following names fall trippingly from your tongue: Rufous-banded Crambid, Pigeon Acrobasis, Frosty Olethreutes, Crepuscular Rock-rose Moth, Spun Glass Slug Moth, Ferruginous Eulin, Feather-duster Agonopterix, Gray-blue Swammerdamia, Ruddy Metarranthis, Black-blotched Schizura, Wavy Chestnut Y, Large Mossy Glyph, Spectacled Nettle Moth, Marble Green Leuconycta, Rosy Rustic, Reniform Helotropha, Pavlovski’s Monopsis, Pale-winged Midget, Wheat Head Armyworm, and the Owl-eyed Bird-dropping Moth. Some names express a not-very-subtle moral judgement on a creature … Read more
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Tulips
My wife and I spent a week in Amsterdam last August, and one day we walked over to the Tulip Museum on Prinsengracht. The museum occupies the first floor of an old house. When you come in off the street, there’s a souvenir shop and a counter where you buy tickets to tour the rest of the museum. When the woman by the cash told us how much tickets cost, I asked if they offered a senior’s discount. “What’s a senior?” she said. “Anyone over 65.” “Are you over 65?” “Yes.” “All right. Then you can have a discount. How … Read more
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