There’s some good commentary on the Sibley paper and Cornell’s response at Living the Scientific Life.
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Daily Archives: Saturday, March 18, 2006
Lafayette and Tower Grove Parks and the backyard
[Previous content deleted—it’s sometimes best not to write while in a bad mood.]
Some Lafayette birds
- Mallard – 2
- Cooper’s Hawk – 1 imm.
- Rock Pigeon
- Mourning Dove
- Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – 1 male
- Northern Flicker – 1
- Brown Creeper – 1
- Golden-crowned Kinglet – 1
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet – 1
- American Robin – many throughout the park
- European Starling
- Fox Sparrow
- Dark-eyed Junco – spread out through the park
- American Goldfinch
- House Finch
Tower Grove birds
- Northern Flicker
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- Tufted titmouse
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- Brown Creeper – 2
- American Robin – many
- Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler
- Fox Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrows
- Dark-eyed Junco
- American Goldfinch – one of these was heavily molting
- House Finch
Yard birds
There were pigeons, Mourning Doves, and starlings, and
- American Robin – 3
- White-throated Sparrow – 1
- Song Sparrow – 1 (the dark-striped variety)
- Dark-eyed Junco – 9!
One less beautiful, adored creature
Alexander Cockburn’s “Beat the Devil” column in the the March 13, 2006, issue of The Nation began with this quotation from a letter Anton Checkhov wrote on April 8, 1892:
Levitan the painter and I went out to the woodcock mating area yesterday evening. He fired at a woodcock and the bird, wounded in the wing, fell in a puddle. I picked it up. It had a long beak, large black eyes, and magnificent plumage. It looked at us in wonder. What were we to do with it? Levitan closed his eyes and begged me, “Please, smash its head in with the rifle.” I said I couldn’t. Levitan kept twitching his head and begging me. And the woodcock kept looking on in wonder. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. And then two idiots went home and sat down to dinner leaving one less beautiful, adored creature in the world.
(Cockburn continues with a commentary about ranch economics and the state of bobwhite and Scaled Quail in Texas.)
At one time my father liked to shoot birds, but in his old age preferred to put food out for them. Towhees in his desert yard would eat seed from the tops of his shoes. Better both for him and for the birds.