Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Absent?

In the past two weeks I have finished 4000 words for a forthcoming book on the art of Tom Quinn, had the Peculiars as guests for a week, and screwed up my back by hiking up a canyon with a yielding floor of washed- out gravel. Now four books have arrived in the mail to review. So I am going to give a few links for now, and some pix, then come back with real essay posts in a bit (I hope).

Pluvi's Gos has caught her first rabbit. She is having the blues at the end of a tough year-- go over and wish her well.

Prairie Mary has been to the Montana Festival of the Book, and has some wise and tough things about the publishing world.

Check out Outside Magazine Online for material on Patrick Symmes' search for the legendary city of Shambhala. No woo- woo stuff here; he points to a real archaeological state in Xinjiang (or as natives prefer, "East Turkestan")

Camera Trap Codger has some tiger tales to tell. He also knew another ratman. (HT Patrick.

Big gun!

(Actually and strangely, such waterfowling cannons are still legal, if rare, in England.)

Raptors-- the non- avian kind-- had feathers! Wonder what Feduccia thinks of this?(In- joke I may explain later).

A New Mexico Ceratopsian.

At Bioephemera, a fascinating post on how we present our personal identities. Any blogger or maybe any writer of non- fiction should read this. (also reminds me I need to add about ten blogs to the blogroll!)

At the Moscow Times: a unique sandpiper seems to be disappearing. The Han Empire's environmental impact continues.

A Daring Book for Girls! Not sure it doesn't sound tougher than the boy's version.

Both Chas and Annie D sent me links to stories on the ban on eating ortolans. I'm not sure that a bird common throughout Eurasia could be all that rare in France (and you should note that several songbirds are legally hunted and eaten there). More pc, like the foie gras ban? Does anyone know?

Laura Niven sent me this story about a dachshund who found a very big old bone. She looks remarkably like our Lily.

Darren now has three posts up about "mainstreaming" cryptozoology. Start here and go up. Lots of other fun stuff at Tet Zoo, and good comments. Darren, I still want my monster pigeons.

Maybe there always WILL be an England. Here is a debate in the House of Lords about what to do about gray squirrels. Of course they're edible!

Pics soon.

3 comments:

Darren Naish said...

Monster pigeons coming in the very next post - - but with the details being saved for something later, sorry :)

Anonymous said...

Ah, the velociraptor feathers. My husband, the dinosaur geek, shouted "Eat that, Feduccia!" at the computer.

Darren Naish said...

Alas, Feduccia and his friends have long since developed their own special solution to this problem: they argue that dromaeosaurs (such as Velociraptor) are actually flightless birds - - but they still argue that birds aren't theropods. I wish I was joking. This is known informally as the MANIAC hypothesis (Maniraptorans Are Not In Actuality Coelurosaurs*).

* Coelurosaurs are the group of theropod dinosaurs that includes birds and their relatives (the maniraptorans) as well as ostrich dinosaurs, tyrannosaurs etc.