Poetry Sunday: Beyond the Red River by Thomas McGrath

I can't seem to get my schedule worked out lately, but here,
better late than never, is a Sunday poem for you. Enjoy!

Beyond the Red River

by Thomas McGrath

The birds have flown their summer skies to the south,
And the flower-money is drying in the banks of bent grass

Which the bumble bee has abandoned. We wait for a winter lion,

Body of ice-crystals and sombrero of dead leaves.

A month ago, from the salt engines of the sea,

A machinery of early storms rolled toward the holiday houses

Where summer still dozed in the pool-side chairs, sipping

An aging whiskey of distances and departures.

Now the long freight of autumn goes smoking out of the land.

My possibles are all packed up, but still I do not leave.

I am happy enough here, where Dakota drifts wild in the universe,

Where the prairie is starting to shake in the surf of the winter dark.

This week in birds - #698

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

This is the Ruffed Grouse, the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. This bantam-sized member of the grouse/pheasant family is one of North America's twelve native grouse species. It is non-migratory and prefers forest habitats. The Ruffed Grouse's numbers are increasing and its greatest threats are human hunters and the disappearance of forests. Its conservation status at present is of least concern.

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In Washington last weekend a memorial was dedicated to the veterans of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, military operations of 1990 and 1991. The memorial draws its inspiration from a desert oasis with walls reminiscent of sand dunes and a shaded grove with trees and bubbling water.

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A dinosaur fossil that has been sitting in a London museum since 1924 has finally been given a name - Invictibellatrix amberina which translates as "unconquered female warrior."

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A well-preserved Zapotec tomb has been discovered in Mexico and is the most important archaeological find in that country in a decade.

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A new genetic study suggests that native Hawaiians descend from a group of "ultravoyagers" who sailed about 4,400 miles from Easter Island.

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Another set of voyagers, monarch butterflies, is beginning to arrive at their overwintering region in Mexico.

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A 4,000-year-old mud brick found in the rubble of a Bronze Age house in western Turkey contains the imprint of a dog's paw, testifying to the long relationship between our two species.

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Research on the once-great Mayan metropolis of Caracol in the forest of Belize is debunking much of what had been believed about that Mesoamerican civilization. 

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The Bangka slow loris, a venomous primate of Southeast Asia, had been thought to be extinct but it turns out it was hiding in plain sight. 

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This is an illustration of the so-called "hell chicken," an ancient dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period that ate mostly fruit.

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Crows can make decisions based on visual information twice as fast as humans can. Here are six proven ways to attract these very smart covids to your yard. 

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A stone found in the Sahara turned out to be a 4.1-billion-year-old meteorite from Mars, the oldest ever found.

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An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them. They came up and turned out to be from an ancient grain.

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An analysis of Inca mummies of sacrificed children showed that they were given coca leaves, corn beer, and an ayahuasca compound before death. In other words, they were drugged.

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The giant bats of Madagascar are shrinking in size and human hunting may be to blame.

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Here are pictures of the beautiful red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.

Poetry Sunday: Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face by Jack Prelutsky

Here's a fun poem for you by a poet I had never heard of. He's an American, born in Brooklyn in 1940 and he has had a varied career encompassing several different kinds of activities. But his true profession seems to be that of poet. See what you think of his work.

Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face

by Jack Prelutsky

Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,

for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place—
be glad your nose is on your face!

No "This week in birds"

For those who came here looking for my weekly feature "This week in birds" I apologize. I did not have a chance to complete that post this week but it will return next week. And may I just express my appreciation for my faithful readers who missed the feature and questioned its absence. I do that post for you and barring any unforeseen circumstances it will be here in its usual spot next Saturday. Thank you once again.

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.