Annals of the Former World

"The world has not always been as it is today.
Much knowledge had to be gathered, and much patient observation was needed, before this was recognized. There are still things to be discovered, for the veil of mystery has not yet been stripped from all these secrets. Perhaps they will be discovered tomorrow, perhaps in a year, perhaps not for a hundred years. Time is not so important as the certain knowledge that one day they will be brought to light and that the darkness which surrounds all mysteries will melt away."

Prehistoric reptiles and birds, Dr Josef Augusta, 
Ill. by Zdenek Burian, Trans. by Margaret Schiel, 1961

A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

Bobcats in Calgary

My friend Doug sent me the following photos of a bobcat walking on the fence in his backyard yesterday. Click on the photo for a larger version. This is the second time Doug and Karine have seen a bobcat in their yard, but the first time he was able to get such nice photos, from inside the house I might add. Reports of bobcats in Calgary have made the local news more and more over the last few years. I have included a links to a CBC article on Calgary bobcats and and some information from Alberta Environment.  (These photos are reproduced here with permission, further reproduction is prohibited and the rights to the photos remains with Doug.) 

Thanks for sharing these lovely photos Doug.

As followers of my blog know I like to include some poetry with my posts. I have quoted these lines before but they immediately sprung to mind when I though of these photos.

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave. 

Come west and see; touch these leaves." 

from Midwest

by William Stafford

For more on Willian Stafford, probably my favourite poet and the quote below see;

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-e-stafford

" Frederick Garber says of Stafford's first book of poems, West of Your City, "West is both Midwest and far West but it is always west of where we are. It is the place of nature and especially of nature's secrecy, that Otherness which we can touch at times." 

What to do if a bobcat family sets up in your backyard
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bobcats-calgary-what-to-do-backyard-1.4271192

https://globalnews.ca/news/5089281/https://globalnews.ca/news/5089281/southeast-calgary-bobcat-maulings-warning/

Government of Alberta
https://www.alberta.ca/bobcats.aspx

'There may be various ways to organize 

one’s story, structuring it 

By place-names or by people or 

by poems, instead of incidents 

And years, yet all of them seem equal in 

the end.'

from La Duree

by Koethe, John. 

The Heron

"As though one's childhood were a small midwestern town
Some forty years ago, before the elm trees died.
September was a modem classroom and the latest cars,
That made a sort of futuristic dream, circa 1955.
The earth was still uncircled. You could set your course
On the day after tomorrow. And children fell asleep
To the lullaby of people murmuring softly in the kitchen,
While a breeze rustled the pages of Life magazine,
And the wicker chairs stood empty on the screened-in porch."

from From the Porch
by John Koethe

The Friday before last, we had family over in the evening. We were sitting on the screened-in porch when a young blue heron, the first we have seen on the slough this summer appeared. It fished directly below us and in the course of 1 or 2 hours in an  area few metres square it caught at least four possibly more Tiger Salamanders. We are lucky to see one a year, often crossing a grid road, so we were amazed at the profusion, much less the size of the animals it found in such a small area. Needless to say the heron has returned on a number of evenings, but I am unsure if it's luck is holding.

"And even as it deepens something turns away,

As though the day were the reflection of a purer day

In which the summer's measures never ended.

The eye that seeks it fills the universe with shapes,

A fabulist, an inquisitor of space

Removed from life by dreams of something other than this life,

Distracted by the bare idea of heaven,"

from Gil's Cafe

by John Koethe

"and it occurs to me

that if I were to die at this moment

that picture would accompany me

wherever I am going

for part of the way."

from The Last Picture in The World

by Al Purdy

 

"And the only poet is the wind,

a drifter

who walked in from the coast

with empty pockets

 

He stands on the road

at evening, making a sound

like a stone harp

strummed

by a handful of leaves...."

 

from The Stone Harp

John Haines

 

Irruption?

 

Thursday I went out on my lunch hour to photograph the

white tailed jackrabbits that have loped through my dreams

recently. While I encountered some, it was a flock of birds in the

spruce that spoke to me. I was initially uncertain if they

were Grosbeaks or Crossbirds but Red Crossbills they were.

One thing that confused me was that I kept seeing

Red Breasted Nuthatches in my camera. I had always

considered them the immobile resident birds of our front

yard spruce. Upon returning home some research told me

that they did indeed irrupt regularly moving about the

countryside, often in mixed species flocks. We do not see a

lot of bird species in the winter so these irruptions of birds 

 whether they be Snowy Owls, Mountain Ash seeking

Waxwings, or the flocks of Snow Buntings skittering across a cold

countryside are welcome additions to the prairie landscape.

The Crossbills are residents of the foothills near Calgary but I have

not seen one the the city for a couple of years perhaps they

are in town for dinner and a movie.Or a visit with their city cousins

the Nuthatches. There were perhaps 30-40 Crosbillls and

5-10 Nuthatches so I am not sure if that constitutes a true

irruption but it was fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this nest at the base of a spruce

in the mountains some years ago. There was a large flock of

Crossbills in the trees so I have assumed this in a Crossbill nest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" the seasons pass

just outside their hearing

but what they died for has faded away

and become something quite different

past justice and injustice"

 

        from The Battlefield at Batoche

                            Al Purdy

The approach to our cabin begins when you turn off a 

gravel road and travel along a gravel lane running through

a field farmed by my brother in law, the field is ringed 

with poplar and the lane has a line of waist high weeds in 

the ditches on either side. Vesper Sparrows run in front of

the vehicle luring you from the locations of their nests and

Goldfinches sway from the top of the thistles. You pass a 

small slough on the right ringed with brush and at the edge

of the field you enter a stand of poplar and begin to climb 

up a steep slope to the ridge where the cabin sits. It is in 

these poplars where we stationed the trail camera that supplied

the pictures of moose, deer and coyotes I posted earlier. The 

poplars also house large numbers of birds including Waxwings,

Red Eyed Vireos, Purple Finches and the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker 

whose young we could hear even over the engine noise for the first

week we were there. You then come to the top of the ridge

where the cabin sits on the edge of the meadow where it

overlooks the slough. It is all these niches with their varied

 plants and animals that I am really looking forward to exploring

when I can spend more time at the cabin. I would really like to

document the distribution of sparrows which is one of the reasons 

I purchased my larger camera lens. While I did not get shots of the 

Vesper Sparrows a stated goal, I did get some shots of the

Sapsucker. 

"I walk, all day, across the heaven-verging field."

                                                 from Upstream 

                                                    Mary Oliver

"And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists

of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

I don't even want to come in out of the rain."

from Black Oaks
Mary Oliver

As I trundled thru the house getting ready for work

I heard the sound of the finches up and singing  with

the dawn. It is for me a happy sound

Later I read an article that appeared as a link on aldaily.com

from the New Republic, Happyism The creepy new economics 

of pleasure by Deirdre N. McCloskey. She touched all

the basics pleasure vs happiness, the hedonic treadmill,

economic theory, surveys etc. and while I found it

interesting if long I was also distracted more and more by the

thoughts of what make me happy. I also realized that one thing
that I enjoy when I read is the authors attempts to capture the

moment when they are overwhelmed by joy, revelation,
fuifillment, what ever you choose to call it.

One of my favorite descriptions of this experience follows.

“I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely

high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit

is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally,

and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.”

from

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard

-----------------

A rare visitor to the yard.

We have been in this house close to twenty years.

After we had been here a few years we heard

the beautiful song of the male House Finch a

bird we were not familiar with here. He would

(we assumed it was the same bird) appear every

Spring but never seemed to get an answer. Eventually,

I can not tell if it was in time for our lone swain more

finches appeared. Now they outnumber house sparrows

at our feeder. And at present they are both bringing their

young to feed and the food is disappearing from the new

Squirrel proof feeders at an alarming rate.



"In trees still dripping night some nameless birds
Woke, shook out their arrowy wings, and sang,
Slowly, like finches sifting through a dream."

From

Morning in a new land
Mary Oliver



The House Finches do seem to spill enough

food that the squirrels while in danger of

frustration are not in danger of starvation.

Leopard's Bane the first non-bulb to flower in our

garden each year.

"Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom."

from

A Blessing

   Jame Wright

“The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful?”  

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard
 

The Calgary Zoo announced a few months ago that they

are looking for a new home for their small group of

Asian Elephants. It is felt they would be better off as

part of a larger social group and hopefully they would

have a larger area that a couple of small dusty paddocks.

We noticed when we went to the DC zoo the elephants

had a huge area by comparison with lots of room to roam.

The search is expected to take several years to find an

accredited facility to take them. Even knowing that it

will take years I felt I was saying goodbye. And while

it is better for them, a bit of wonder will be lost from our lives
when we can no longer see them in the flesh.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

                  

from                  

                  Evidence

                       Mary Oliver

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.

 The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and 

let the beautiful stuff out.”

 Ray Bradbury

I learned yesterday that a favorite author

Ray Bradbury had died. Ray wrote beautifully

and for me often captured the wonder and terror

of everyday life. Last night I watched The Beast 

from 20,000 Fathoms a film loosely based on 

Bradbury's story the Foghorn with the monster

created by his friend Ray Harryhausen. Since

I am travelling I would like to offer some quotes

from the internet with photos from my earlier blogs.

All the quotes below come from Bradbury or

his works

"The sun burnt everyday. It burnt Time. 

The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis 

and time was busy burning the years and the 

people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt 

things with the firemen and the sun burnt time, 

that meant that everything burnt."   

Fahrenheit 451

Montag

"Yet this train's whistle! The wails of a 

lifetime were gathered in it from other 

nights in other slumbering years; 

the howl of moon-dreamed dogs, 

the seep of river-cold winds through 

January porch..."

Something Wicked This Way Comes

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if 

they don't they should, for their feet are 

dusted with spices from a million flowers.”

Dandelion Wine

“Way out in the country tonight he could smell 

the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the

 triangle eye and the singeing candle.” 

Dandelion Wine

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? 

Well, what tongue does the wind talk? 

What nationality is a storm? What country do rains 

come from? What color is lightning? Where does 

thunder go when it dies?” 

Something Wicked This Way Comes

"I have never listened to anyone who criticized 

my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. 

When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs 

and leave the room.” 

Ray Bradbury 

Thanks Ray