The Nature of Things

  A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : A Cooper's Hawk surveys my backyard looking for a possible meal. *~*~*~* Heat continues to be a big story. It is now winter in Australia and yet they just endured a day with a high temperature of 107 degrees F . Moreover, a recent study found that deaths from heat-related causes have doubled in this country in recent decades. *~*~*~* Atlantic hurricane activity has been on the quiet side this summer. *~*~*~* The world's second-largest diamond ever found has been discovered in Botswana. *~*~*~* Even in the Sahara Desert it sometimes rains . *~*~*~* In Iceland, the news continues to be of volcanic eruptions . *~*~*~* The Northern Bald Ibis was extinct in central Europe for three hundred years but with a helping hand from science , it is making a comeback. *~*~*~* The Pantanal region of Brazil is being consumed by wildfires that are made worse by ongoing drought. *~*~*~* Meanwhile, Colombia is being overrun by...

  In this second entry in his Malcolm Fox series, Ian Rankin sends Fox and his Complaints team out of Edinburgh. They must go to the town of Kirkcaldy to investigate the possibility that a group of police officers has conspired to cover up the bad behavior of one of their fellow officers, Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of sexual misconduct with women whom he had arrested. His own uncle, who is a former police officer, is the one who brought the charges against him to light. The Complaints team arrives in Kirkcaldy to find no cooperation from their fellow police officers and, in fact, obstruction of their investigation on every hand. Malcolm Fox intuits very early on in the investigation that all is not quite as it seems. There may be more here than meets the eye, and, since this is an Ian Rankin plot, of course there is. Fox goes to talk with the uncle. Soon after their conversation the uncle is found dead, at first thought to be a suicide, but things don't add...

Summer is beginning to wind down in most places in the northern hemisphere although it lingers longer here in Southeast Texas. Still, late August and September fit the description of late summer. Late Summer by Jennifer Grotz Before the moths have even appeared to orbit around them, the streetlamps come on, a long row of them glowing uselessly   along the ring of garden that circles the city center, where your steps count down the dulling of daylight. At your feet, a bee crawls in small circles like a toy unwinding.   Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream. And the noisy day goes so quiet you can hear the bedraggled man who visits each trash receptacle   mutter in disbelief:  Everything in the world is being thrown away! Summer lingers, but it’s about ending. It’s about how things redden and ripen and burst and come down. It’s when   city workers cut down trees, demolishing one limb at a time, spilling the crumbs of twigs and leaves all over t...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment :  A Common Gallinule enjoying a swim. *~*~*~* To prevent a climate breakdown we not only need to reduce carbon emissions; we need to restore Nature . *~*~*~* As glacial melt continues and increases, there is a  danger of a megatsunami being triggered. *~*~*~* There are at least 144 species of birds that have not been seen in at least a decade but scientists suspect (hope) they may still be out there somewhere and they have issued a BOLO for the public. *~*~*~* An Icelandic volcano has erupted for the sixth time since December.  *~*~*~* Out there in space somewhere is a "speedy little star" that may be on its way out of our galaxy. *~*~*~* And back here on Earth, there is good news from the world of endangered  California Condors : The captive breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo has produced a record-breaking seventeen chicks this year. *~*~*~* There is renewed hope that the worst-case scenario for t...

The Van Laar family owns a summer camp for kids in the Adirondacks. Their thirteen-year-old daughter, Barbara, is attending that summer camp in August 1975. When the camp counselor goes to wake her early one morning, she finds Barbara's bunk empty and a cursory search does not find her. Barbara is missing.  Moreover, fourteen years earlier, Barbara's older brother, Bear, had also vanished when he was eight years old, never to be found. Now it seems to have happened again. But why? Are the two disappearances related and will Barbara be found? The Van Laars are a seriously damaged family and not just because of these two tragedies. The father, Peter, is a workaholic and an authoritarian ruler of the family. The psychologically damaged mother, Alice, is an alcoholic and pill addict. The grandparents are equally messed up, a harsh grandfather and a silent, obedient grandmother. What a family life for the two kids to have endured! The story features several strong female characters....

In the 1700s, there was a thriving slave trade of people stolen from their homes in Africa and brought to the Americas. On one of those ships bound for America was an ancestor of Lovely Jackson. Her ancestor survived the wreck of that ship off the coast of Florida and managed to swim, with other survivors, to a small island where they were able to live, free and undisturbed. Descendants of those first residents continuously inhabited the island until 1955 when Lovely Jackson, the last resident, left what was then known as Dark Isle. She was fifteen years old.  Now Dark Isle has attracted the attention of a predatory land developer. He wants to build a bridge to the island from the mainland and furnish it with high-priced condos and casinos. This story, however, begins with a current-day wedding. Writer Mercer Mann marries her long-time beau, Thomas. Mercer mentions to some attendees at the wedding that she is searching for a subject for her next book and her friend, Bruce Cable, ow...

We are in mid-summer now but we know autumn and winter are coming... Seasons of Life  by Joseph Anderson How like the seasons is our life, We face the sunshine, storms and strife; As seasons come, so they must go, We are enjoined within that flow. In spring we start our journey new, When flowers bloom and skies are blue; The trees are budding, birds will sing, With youth in bloom, it's always spring. 'Tis summer soon, we are mature, Face love and kids, home and career; It's harvest time, success we seek, These sounds of summer leave us weak. Then autumn calls to have it's say, The foliage falls, the hair turns gray; The chill descends and soon the frost, We think, perhaps on things we lost. Old winter grips with snow and cold, We watch our destined fate unfold; As now we near our time to go And seek life's final afterglow.

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment :  My little backyard goldfish pond is home - in addition to the goldfish - to little green frogs, a garter snake, and, occasionally a bullfrog like this one. It is an endless source of entertainment for me. *~*~*~* The main environmental story at the moment is the incredible heat that is blanketing the northern hemisphere. The planet is heating even faster than climate scientists had predicted, leaving them somewhat baffled by its pace. Even the Arctic region is baking in unprecedented high temperatures . The question is, how close is the planet to a tipping point from which it will be impossible to recover?  *~*~*~* The heat is warming Earth's rivers which is creating yet another set of problems for those who depend on the fish from those rivers. *~*~*~* It is believed that changing water levels and erosion are what have led to the collapse of the famed double arch over the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. *...

Baseball was my favorite game when I was growing up. (It still is.) And when I discovered this poem about a dramatic moment in a game, it became my favorite poem. I still find it fun to read.  Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888 The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play. And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that— We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat. But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat. But Flynn let drive a sing...