Poetry Sunday: Candy Corn by Thaddeus Tarpey

As a child, whenever Halloween came around on the calendar, and cries of "Trick or treat!" rang out, I always hoped for a treat of candy corn, my favorite autumn sweet. I confess I like it still. 

Apparently Thaddeus Tarpey liked it, too. He liked it so much that he wrote a poem for it!   

Candy Corn

by Thaddeus Tarpey

When the Autumn sun warms dying stalks
Of corn with unkempt tassel locks.
The earth turns from green to brown,
Candy corn comes to town.

A cackling witch stokes the ember
Smoky spirits escape the timber.
The leaves in trees turn an amber hue,
Candy Corn, I yearn for you.

Across my path a shadow creeps,
Into day, nighttime seeps.
My dreams turn to sugary storms.
Candy corn, keep me warm.

Before I die and decompose,
Let me warm by your coals.
Orange, white, yellow form,
The wonderment of Candy corn.

This week in birds - #697

(I apologize for the lateness of this post.) 

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Common Raven, an acrobatic flyer known for doing rolls and somersaults in the air. The raven can be found throughout much of the northern hemisphere around the world, including the northern regions of North America. They are very smart birds which can make them dangerous predators of vulnerable animals. Native people of the Pacific Northwest regard the raven as an incurable trickster. We know that Edgar Allan Poe must have found them a bit creepy based on his famous poem. Ravens in the wild can live very long lives. The oldest recorded one lived for 22 years, seven months. Their populations have increased over the last fifty years and the bird's conservation status is presently of least concern.

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A necropsy has revealed that Jackie, the wild Bald Eagle in California whose life I had followed on camera for eight years, died of bird flu. This was a surprise since her symptoms did not indicate bird flu and there was no outbreak of the disease in the area.

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The United States now has its 64th national park. It is the Chiricahua National Park, previously the Chiricahua National Monument, in southeast Arizona.

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Fall migration is underway in the Mississippi Flyway that runs through the middle of the continent, and over last weekend more than 1,000 of the birds taking that route died or were injured in collisions with windows in Chicago according to monitors there.

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A family of Barn Owls is now living in Manhattan, the first of their kind known to have nested there in modern history. 

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The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took place sixteen years ago but deep-sea species have shown little evidence of recovery there.

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Climate change is making the jobs of animal control officers even harder as wild animals move into populated areas. 

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African elephants shape the savanna ecosystem in which they live. They continue shaping it even after death.

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In other elephant news, scientists are using A.I. to help decode their vocalizations.

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Dam removals in the Northeastern United States are encouraging fish to return to those streams. 

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Humpback whales have benefitted from forty years of conservation efforts on their behalf.

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Critically endangered vaquitas in Mexico's Gulf of California will now be in greater danger as Mexico is reducing the area that is protected for them.

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An animal that looked like a hybrid of a platypus and an otter lived alongside dinosaurs some 165 million years ago.

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The winner of Brazil's presidential election could determine the fate of the country's rainforest.

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                                   A nesting green sea turtle.

Here's some good news: Green sea turtle populations are making a remarkable comeback around the world. 

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Colorado's wildlife mitigation efforts are making things safer for everyone.

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Rhode Island may be the smallest state but its residents grow the biggest pumpkins. There is one that weighed in at 3156 pounds at the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Weigh-Off. 

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Finally, here are more pictures for you:

- Fifteen photos of coral reefs.  

- Sixteen pictures from the world's best wildlife photographers.

This modern world continues to confound

I stole this from Daily Kos. I do enjoy "Tom Tomorrow's" very perceptive political commentary.

 

Poetry Sunday: Remember by Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to become poet laureate of the United States, gave us this poem about the interconnectiveness of all life. It speaks of our ties to our ancestors and family as well as our connection to the natural world. We are a part of the universe, separate and yet a reflection of it. Let us always remember that.

Remember 

by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,  

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

This week in birds - #696

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Yellow-crowned Night Heron. A bird of aquatic habitats, both oceans and fresh water, the bird is found throughout North and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Its population size is unknown but appears to be stable and its conservation status is presently of least concern. Its two major threats are loss of habitat and the use of pesticides, both of which are attributable to humans.

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Dams around the world hold so much water that they have actually shifted Earth's poles. 

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October's Big Day of birding on October 10 turned out to be a REALLY big day.

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Project FeederWatch starts on November 1. If you haven't already signed up, there is still time. 

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A Miami airport police operation found two smugglers with a total of 21 birds in their pants.

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What is perhaps the world's oldest shipwreck - some 4,700 years old - has been discovered off the coast of Turkey. Much of the residue of its cargo still remained.

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Researchers in Turkey have also unearthed a fragment of the world's oldest known peace treaty.  

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Scientists have discovered two new species of sea spider in the ocean around the Pacific Northwest.

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A couple of retirees in Virginia have turned their neighboring farms into a wildlife corridor.

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Bird taxonomy is about to be updated. As usual there will probably be changes as some species are either split or lumped together.

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Wildlife biologists in Australia are vaccinating Albatrosses by hand in an attempt to control the spread of avian flu in Tasmania. 

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A 50-million-year-old slab of rock found in Wyoming preserved hundreds of  freshwater herring.

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Here's the story of the "vine that ate the South" - kudzu.

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Researchers have found that Tree Swallows in the northern U.S. and Canada face a greater risk from climate change than do their fellows in more southerly climes.

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A family of Barn Owls that has moved into New York City's Upper West Side may be the first to nest in Manhattan in modern history.

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Here are some amazing pictures from winners in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.

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Who doesn't love pictures of pandas?

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And here are some quite hilarious pictures from the 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards.

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What are the happiest states in the country? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hawaii is number one.

Poetry Sunday: Merry Autumn by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When I go looking for a poem to feature here in my Sunday post, I find that I very often turn to Paul Dunbar. This African-American poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often speaks the sentiments that I am feeling. I find that is especially true of this poem. I've never thought of autumn as a solemn or dreary season. In fact it is just about my favorite time of year, the "highest time of living" in the poet's words.

And what about you? Do you find autumn merry?

Merry Autumn

by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,

And moans astir o’er field and dell,

     Because the year is dying.

 

Such principles are most absurd,—

     I care not who first taught ’em;

There’s nothing known to beast or bird

     To make a solemn autumn.

 

In solemn times, when grief holds sway

     With countenance distressing,

You’ll note the more of black and gray

     Will then be used in dressing.

 

Now purple tints are all around;

     The sky is blue and mellow;

And e’en the grasses turn the ground

     From modest green to yellow.

 

The seed burrs all with laughter crack

     On featherweed and jimson;

And leaves that should be dressed in black

     Are all decked out in crimson.

 

A butterfly goes winging by;

     A singing bird comes after;

And Nature, all from earth to sky,

     Is bubbling o’er with laughter.

 

The ripples wimple on the rills,

     Like sparkling little lasses;

The sunlight runs along the hills,

     And laughs among the grasses.

 

The earth is just so full of fun

     It really can’t contain it;

And streams of mirth so freely run

     The heavens seem to rain it.

 

Don’t talk to me of solemn days

     In autumn’s time of splendor,

Because the sun shows fewer rays,

     And these grow slant and slender.

 

Why, it’s the climax of the year,—

     The highest time of living!—

Till naturally its bursting cheer

     Just melts into thanksgiving.

This week in birds - #695

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the beautiful Baltimore Oriole, the male of which is pictured here. During summer they can be found throughout much of eastern part of the United States and parts of Canada. The member of the blackbird/oriole/troupial family is one of the earliest birds I can remember from my childhood, probably because it is so flashy. Currently their population, like that of many other birds, is decreasing but they are still considered to be of "least concern." Their main threat is habitat loss and pesticides.

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The death of a lab worker in Russia from infection with the bacterium that causes plague is causing scientists to worry, which means that we should probably all be worried. 

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Here are the stories of five birds, including the Passenger Pigeon (seen above), that have disappeared. Their loss is a cautionary tale for us.

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The oldest land animal alive is Jonathan, a 194-year-old Aldabra giant tortoise. Scientists hope that studying his DNA might provide clues to longevity. 

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There is a hole in our stratosphere, the size of which fluctuates every year. This year's hole was the biggest in twenty-five years.

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A diver cleaning up trash from a Wisconsin lake discovered a 1,000-year-old dugout canoe at its bottom.

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Neanderthals long carried a reputation as a brutish and unintelligent branch of humanity but a reassessment finds them to have been intelligent and rather sophisticated.

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The mysterious armored pangolin is being relentlessly hunted and is vanishing from habitats in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists are working to unlock the secrets that might save it.

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One hundred years ago, an extinct crocodilian's skull was found in the rocks used to build the Sphinx. It turns out it was a previously unknown species.

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We are still learning new things about T. Rex, the world's most famous dinosaur and our understanding of the "tyrant lizard king" has changed quite a bit from when he was first found.

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And a fossil of a winged dinosaur is giving indications that flight might have evolved multiple times among the species.

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A new archaeological discovery shows that ancient people east of the Mississippi River had feasted on chocolate for at least 1,000 years.

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Scientists are using artificial intelligence to decode the vocalizations of African elephants.

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Africa's Bearded Vulture has long teetered on the brink of extinction but it is being brought back by a specialized breeding program.

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Another species that has been on the brink of extinction is the rhinoceros and again efforts are being made by dedicated conservationists to ensure that it doesn't pass that brink. 

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Two small South American birds, the Bare-throated Bellbird and the Red-legged Seriema, are the loudest in nature, able to reach a deafening 122 decibels.