Why do I keep this blog? This is why.

A bird, nesting, right over the doorway.

I first saw the bird in the nest a couple of days ago, above the door I generally use to get to the sidewalk. The bird didn't move, so I figured it must be artificial. Some kind of garden decoration somebody had planted up there either for a gag or because they just liked the way it looked. Although the nest was a little messy for that.

But today I came back and the building's Russian handyman pointed the bird―which looks like some kind of columbiform―out to me. It's real. She's real, and had a chick next to her. Maybe there's a daddy bird out there getting food for them? We don't know. 

Late afternoon, early evening, we had a thunderstorm. I went downstairs to look at the bird through the little window over the door. This time I did see her head move. And later on, at night, her head was turned so she could look inside. 

How could this not be a blessing?

Rock dwellers

 

Pikas are, as stated here, relatives of rabbits. They look it, too. So it's interesting that their survival strategies are so far apart. Rabbits burrow into the soft ground, the low ground. It can be in country, city, or suburb. Pikas live high up, among rocks. And it's through that difference that they have ultimately become a different creature.

Ears up

Seeing as we're on the eve of a holiday with a bunny mascot, I just searched for "rabbits playing jazz." The idea popped into my head. Funny bunny rabbits playing sax and standup bass and the like. I don't know what I was thinking. Jim Henson could have done something with the idea, but he's long gone. In 2026, you can imagine what a video answering to that description would probably be like.

The silver lining is that the search term indirectly led me to this subreddit of people posting their pet rabbits. Which I'm guessing have been more accommodated than domesticated. In any event, everyone looks to be happy.

Little black and white birds

As has been said elsewhere, they sound somewhat like they're laughing. They seem to be social birds, as well. These little auks are congregating, as they do, in the Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Svalbard didn't really have a population until the 17th century. I wonder what the first human settlers made of these cackling birds.

Never forget

 

When I first saw the header for this video I said, "Wow, are they actually playing 'Rain', the song John Lennon wrote for the Beatles?" As it happens, the answer is "no." Or if they are, the tune has been altered beyond recognition. But they are playing something tuneful. I mean, I don't think I could play music that well with my nose. Same goes for pretty much everyone I know.

Goin' south

As this page notes, Weddell seals live further south than any other mammal on Earth. They are the neighbors of penguins in what most of us would consider rather extreme conditions. That includes catching fish and eating under vast sheets of ice.

Seals are thought to have evolved from an otter-like species in Arctic Canada. So modern day harp seals and walruses haven't moved far from where their long-ago ancestors were. Weddell seals live at the other end of the world. Seals have evolved and migrated since then. Of course many have gotten used to sunshine and warmth in the lands in between. Some of those who went all the way through had to adjust to perpetual winter conditions.

Rolling...

Newsflash: Snakes have pretty odd eyes. Which I guess you might expect after all. We named a dice roll of two ones after them. They must strike some kind of unusual response.

I like the idea that their eyes regressed as a result of their burrowing underground and developed once more when they moved back to the surface. Sometimes you just have to find another way in. Imagine the first generation of snakes, seeing the world in color, with eyes that hadn't done that in some time.

Something blue

Was just appreciating the pictures of these blue cats. A lot of them are essentially grey with just a hint of blue. The Chartreux cat, however, is strikingly blue, offset by these tangerine colored eyes.

Blue hair/fur doesn't turn up much in mammals. The evolutionary reasons why it's so rare are up for debate, as are the reasons why there are occasional exceptions. 

With these cats, they have unusual colors because of genetics: alleles and eumelanin. In the case of humans, well, it's just boredom.

Down Under hounds

Interesting overview of dingoes. While they're not exactly dogs, or at least not the same species as domestic dogs, the difference is kind of subtle. They do resemble dogs more than other wild canids do. One might very well mistake them for such. It's only when you notice that they're traveling in packs and don't seem to have any humans in charge of them that the difference becomes glaring. What we seem to be looking at is a slightly earlier stage of canine evolution.

In memoriam to anonymous

Out walking today, I almost stepped on a small body. It could have been a rat, but could conceivably been an opossum as well. Which mammal it was, exactly, I couldn't tell because it had been dried out and thoroughly picked clean. Weird that it stayed out there so long, but this street doesn't seem to get as much foot traffic as it does merging cars.

Anyway, going on the idea that it might be an opossum, I started looking them up. This is a nice short video. I didn't realize that possums were a different animal, native to Australia. It's thought that marsupials first evolved in South America, and migrated to Australia when they were closer together. The opossum is the one marsupial that migrated north to N. America instead.

They eat ticks? That is handy, especially in Lyme country.

S'now lie

The Scotia Arc is basically the connecting tissue between South America and Antarctica. A long underwater system, it has a number of islands appearing on the surface. South of Tierra del Fuego, most of them have never had native populations. This is the frosty part of the Southern Hemisphere, and what happens there is mostly out of our sight.

The Snowy Sheathbill lives there. It's the kind of cold weather bird you don't see much in these parts. The white fluffy feathers could almost pass for packed snow. Did kids build it? But you have to admit it also looks quite determined.

Elegy

In the last couple of days I've noticed two dead animals (mammals) by the side of the road. One was a rabbit and the other was a squirrel. The rabbit was an especially sad sight because it was barely larger than a mouse, so it must have been a kit.

I note this not to be morbid, but as a kind of companion to other observations. You often see animals running across the street in a city. Cats seem to be very adept at it. But there's no guarantee of safety with this action. As is often the case. Drivers can do you in without--in most cases--intending to or even knowing you're there.

Part of the deal

If you or I or any other human had a lower lip full of warts that would be considered a medical problem. We'd almost certainly want to get rid of it.

The Jamaican Fruit Bat, by contrast, has them as a matter of course. Many leaf nosed bats do. It's sometimes said to be a defense against toxins in the skins of amphibians they eat. Possibly, but the Jamaican is mostly frugivorous, so wouldn't really encounter that problem. But still, these are an adaptation to something, with origins coming from within the body. So they're not really warts, which are caused by viruses.

Must be said that the Jamaican Fruit Bat is also quite fetching, especially the babies.

Those who've left the party

It's interesting that―while one group is coldblooded and the other warm-blooded―reptiles and birds share a common lineage, since they're all sauropsids. What a lot of people don't realize is that as mammals we also used to have an analogous cousin class. We're all synapsids, and the surviving synapsids (i.e. mammals) have warm blood. But there used to be a whole slew of coldblooded synapsids. In fact, they pretty much dominated the land before the End-Permian extinction. Which was some extinction. 

If the non-mammalian synapsids were still around they'd be easily confused with reptiles, probably. They were put on the back foot during the Triassic period, and obviously never recovered. And here we are now. Life is full of odd reversals, some of which take place over a longer time than we can wrap our heads around.

Vulpes

 

Foxes are even less imposing than your average dog. Oh, they're more feral, and their teeth are no joke. Still, they're quite small and squishy. And their natural sound is somewhere between a meow and a bleat.

They're not wolves, in other words. They're in the same general family, but worlds away. Somehow they've found a niche, though. Aside from being cute―which of course they are―they're well enough adapted to survive millennia upon millennia.

Orange beak life

 

Puffins, like auks, have really taken the subarctic zone and run with it. They've made their home at least as far north as Iceland and Greenland. So while Orkney, which has a lot of rocks and few trees, might seem an unlikely setting for a bird colony, it's not extreme for them. They've taken to it.

By the way, researching for this post I found out that at least one person has gone online to ask how puffins taste. I'm not hurrying to find out firsthand. 

Additional bird business

I was in Downtown Providence―officially called "Downcity" but I'm not calling it that―and I had kind of a lucky vantage point. Pigeons were mulling around on the ground and then all of a sudden, they all took off together. And in this great orderly curved shape as well. They landed, and then a few seconds later they took off again, once more lighting about where they'd started. 

This is something they do, I'm given to understand. But watching them it's hard to believe this isn't choreographed. Weird and cool at the same time.

Murder most feathery

As I first set out today on a grocery shopping expedition afternoon was turning into evening. Dusk, then. And in the lot behind a house a couple down from my apartment building, the crows were gathering together.

There's a little bit of explanation for these great corvid jamborees here. 

Wave after wave of crows will swarm together in tree tops, on the roofs of buildings, or on the ground until there are thousands of crows all gathered in one place, before finally moving into their nightly roost location to sleep.

One primary reason is apparently protection from predators. You don't see serious birds of prey around here all that often, but I know they're about.

In any case, I'm not complaining. The sight of all these crows gathered together is awesome to behold, and their caws have a comforting beauty if you're willing to hear it.

Nice what?

Good on the people of Zoo Tampa for trying to preserve the African painted dogs. I hope their efforts work out.

That being said, these creatures do not actually look like dogs. If you saw someone walking one down the street you'd spend at least a few seconds going "What is that?" rather than going straight to "Ah, dog."

Africa has produced a lot of animals that have weird and obvious patterns on their fur. I'd guess their extreme lighting conditions have something to do with that.

Wild zebras couldn't drag me away

It's a story I've only heard about in the past couple of years, and it's delightfully nutty. William Randolph Hearst imported a herd of zebras for his private zoo, because that's the kind of millionaire tycoon he was. Eventually he groaned "Rosebud!" for the last time and most of his animals went to legitimate zoos. But the zebras stayed. Eventually they got out and went wild. Now Southern California has wild zebras as part of its ecosystem, at least in a small stretch.

Introduced/invasive species can cause havoc, of course. But it seems like these zebras have kept in balance pretty well. It might be that they're filling a niche left by an insufficient number of wild horses and antelope.