Heron experiences puzzlement at humanyelling.

Video by Meade, near the UW Marching Band practice field.

CORRECTION: The location was not by the practice field but near Lake Wingra, and the yelling was not from the band leader but kids, playing soccer. Also, for those who may care about precision in the observation of birds, there was, just out of the frame, a bunch of Canada geese. Meade seems to think the heron was annoyed by the geese and believes he saw the heron imitate the geese to insult and mock them! Meade performed the move the heron made with his neck, as if the heron meant to let the geese know how stupid they look.

The sandhill crane would like to be seen as a goose or duck.

Photo by Meade. The white duck/goose head shape pops as the dark beak and the true head shape recede.

I asked Grok if there's any writing on the topic of this head-shape camouflage on the sandhill crane and it "searched extensively" and told me that I seem to have made "a unique observation." How can that be, with all the birdwatching that goes on?! I can't believe it. The fake head marking is so obvious!

"The only jeans made specifically for birds."

The only jeans made specifically for birds pic.twitter.com/Imb62l90IA

— Official Jon Lajoie (@jonlajoiecomedy) August 19, 2025

“A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia.”

“Officials say a flying osprey dropped its catch, which then struck power lines, causing sparks that ignited dry grass.”

NYT. 

"They jaywalk across bike paths, swagger through crosswalks barefoot like the Beatles, preen in the parks and..."

"... sometimes strut between office buildings and cultural landmarks in the city center. In parks, the problem can be even worse, with the droppings matting the grass and squishing into the treads of shoes."

From "Finland’s Short, Precious Summers Are Plagued by Goose Poop/Finns trying to enjoy beaches and parks during their all-too-brief summers have been vexed by legions of geese — and their droppings. The smelly mess has resisted even the most innovative solutions" (NYT).

The "innovative solutions" are ineffective pooper scoopers in the litter box that is the sandy beach. Outside of Finland, "officials fight the problem at its source: the birds themselves."

"Of course the Little Spotted Kiwi isn’t spotted very much! Otherwise, it would be called the Frequently Spotted Kiwi."

A comment at the Metafilter discussion of the RNZ article "Little spotted kiwi found on New Zealand's mainland for first time in 50 years" ("Knowing kiwi pukupuku have survived this whole time in our takiwā is incredible. We are extremely excited and looking forward to working with DOC to secure the future of kiwi pukupuku").

While I'm on the subject of New Zealand birds, let me link to this from a few days ago: "First the dire wolf, now NZ’s giant moa: why real ‘de-extinction’ is unlikely to fly": "[B]irds are harder to 'de-extinct' than placental mammals. One would need a surrogate egg to bring chicks to term, and for many moa species there are no eggs from living birds big enough to house a developing chick. In this case, artificial eggs would need to be developed.... Genetically engineering a tinamou or any other birds in this group to create a moa hybrid would be... much harder than genetically engineering a grey wolf. And in any case, this would not recreate a moa, but merely something that may look like a moa. As one critic put it, it would not have the mauri (life force) of a moa."

I asked Grok to give me more about "mauri" in this context. From the answer: "As one expert reaction put it, 'Genetic tinkering with the fundamental features of a different life force will not bring moa back,' highlighting that mauri cannot be replicated through science alone; it is an irreplaceable, holistic quality tied to the species' natural history, whakapapa, and place in the ecosystem. This critique underscores broader ethical concerns in de-extinction debates, including cultural heritage, interdependence with nature, and the limits of human intervention in restoring extinct beings."

"On immigration, you better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore. You got to get your act together."

"You know, last month, we had nobody entering our country. Nobody. Shut it down.... We took out a lot of bad people that got there with Biden. Biden was a total stiff. And what he allowed to happen, but you’re allowing it to happen to your countries. And you got to stop this horrible invasion that’s happening to Europe. Many countries in Europe. Some people, some leaders have not let it happen. And they’re not getting the proper credit they should. I could name them to you right now, but I’m not going to embarrass the other ones. But stop. This immigration is killing Europe." And also: "Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it. It’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds. And if they’re stuck in the ocean, ruining your oceans. Stop the windmills."

Said Trump, quoted in "Trump arrives in Scotland to claim immigration is ‘killing Europe’/The US president said there had been ‘a horrible invasion’ of migrants after he landed in Scotland for a four-day visit on Friday evening" (London Times).

Too many goslings.

This morning on Lake Mendota, 5:37 a.m.

"Through one Canadian ancestor, Louis Boucher de Grandpre, who was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, the pope is related to... Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac and Madonna."

The NYT informs in an article that seems mostly concerned with whether the Pope is — in some sense — black.

We're told the article is written "by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in collaboration with American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami."

The article contains an amazing — and amazingly wrong — assertion: "Every one of us descends from an astounding number of recent ancestors: two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 third great grandparents and 64 fourth great grandparents — that’s 126 unique ancestors through two parents. Go back to our 12th great grandparents, and everyone has a whopping 32,766 forebears."

As if the 32,766 positions on the family tree are always — and for everyone — going to be 32,766 different individuals! I think it's unlikely that anyone has 32,766 different individuals on a family tree going back to the 12th great grandparents.

The terms for this very well known issue is "pedigree collapse."

The return of the flying creature.

At 5:18 this morning:

I believe it's the same bird observed at 5:23 on Monday morning, here. In the comments there, Quaestor and rehajm said owl. "Owl," "Yes, totally owl."

Jaq said: "I think that we are going to have to use Bayesian logic to figure out the bird, and before I zoomed in my first thought was buzzard, but after zooming in, I am betting my case of whiskey on owl," and then "Nah, I was thinking about it and I think that time of day, milieu, and the general silhouette has me changing my bet to a night heron flying home after working the night shift fishing," and then, "the tail is not right for a night heron."

Quaestor returned to say: "Night heron? Not enough beak or neck showing Furthermore, a night heron's legs trail behind the deck feathers in flight. I'm sticking with an owl, probably a great horned owl. They aren't usually associated with lake environments, but they are opportunistic hunters. This one could have spent the night hunting ducklings."

Rusty concurred: "Yeah. Goin' with owl. Good catch."

Flying creature competes with the sun.

At 5:23 this morning.

A bit later, the sun competed in this picture Meade took of me:

Redstarts and that Wobbling Rock.

Rain nixed the sunrise run today, but the weather was lovely when the time came for what I call The Second Walk, and I encountered 2 very tiny, very active birds along the woodland path. 

The "Visual Intelligence" button on my phone informed me that they were redstarts. Redstarts! Never heard of them. And I say "them" because they're both there, male and female. The female is hard to see, but as The Beatles observed long ago, that means she's good looking.

I got a second outing, to the front yard, which is heavily shaded now. I sat on the bench and read a book — read it 3 times. Almost understood it.

Write about anything you want in the comments. Did you get outside 2 or 3 times? Did you read any books cover to cover, multiple times? 

Sandhill cranes take a long lunch.

From the driver-side window, Meade takes a 24-second video:

 

After our hike, riding home, 2 hours later, I take a 24-second video from the passenger-side window at exactly the same spot:

One might casually and shallowly dream of needing to eat constantly, just to maintain a healthy weight. Perhaps you'd love to take a pill that would put you in this predicament. But imagine living like this!

The NYT is trying to heart-warm us with a story about saving Canada geese!

With dismay, I'm reading "A ‘Quixotic’ Fight to Protect a Bird That Can Be Hard to Love/Two New York men who bonded over bird-watching at the Central Park Reservoir are united in their efforts to save the nests of its resident Canada geese."

Edward Dorson, a wildlife photographer and regular visitor to the reservoir, learned in 2021 that federal workers were destroying the eggs of Canada geese there as part of a government safety program to decrease bird collisions with airplanes. He tried to stop it. He reached out to animal rights organizations and wrote letters to various government agencies. He got nowhere. Then in December, he met Larry Schnapf, a tough-talking environmental lawyer, who spotted Mr. Dorson admiring the birds and introduced himself....

When's the last time a tough-talking lawyer walked up to you and introduced himself? 

Mr. Schnapf, 72, is a fast-talking, fast-acting networker who is not afraid to make noise. “I told Ed,” he said, “you’ve got to rattle the bureaucracy. All we’re trying to do is get them to talk to us, so we can come up with a plan.... I don’t see too many people like me who are worried about the geese."

Because people don't want the lakeside festooned with excrement... or the planes crashing. The heroes of this story are the egg-destroying feds.

"I’ve seen a plane taxiing down the runway and the people looking out and seeing me with a bird. They’re like, ‘What’s that? What are you doing?"

Said Norman Smith, quoted in "The 'owl man' is busy at Boston Logan airport/Norman Smith has trapped and released more than 900 Arctic raptors for the safety of the birds and the planes" (WaPo)(free-access link, because of all the owl pics).

With the congested airspace and constant rumble of jets, the airport is hardly a tranquil bird sanctuary. But Smith said the terrain resembles the Arctic tundra. It’s open, flat and barren, with water on three sides and plenty to eat, including waterfowl and small mammals....

“The importance of Norm coming in is that he helps us take out a significant threat to aviation safety, which is a large, dense-bodied bird on the airfield,” said Jeff Turner, the airport facilities supervisor....

I liked that phrase "dense-bodied bird." Googled it and found only one other iteration: "Think Turkeys Aren't Tough?" on Archery Forum ("i've had more broadhead damage caused and no pass through situations on turkeys than deer or bear. I've had 95 ke setups not pass through. They are a dense bodied bird).

Sunrise — 6:03, 6:39.

Talk about whatever you like.

And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

What if it were your job to infuse the zoo with Critical Race Theory, radical feminism, and LGBTQ+ instruction and insight?

As noted in the previous post, President Trump signed an executive order that "directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo."

Now, maybe the zoo is thrown in there because it's run by the Smithsonian. But I had to wonder what the zoo might be doing and what it could do if it wanted to lean into the kind of ideology that the Trumpian vision sees as improper, divisive, and anti-American.

So I asked Grok to assume the job of infusing the zoo with Critical Race Theory, radical feminism, and LGBTQ+ instruction and insight. I told it to write some placards to be posted in front of particular animals and displays. If you're one of those people who won't read things written by A.I., you'd better bail out now, because what follows is 100% Grok:

Sunrise – 6:55, 7:13, 7:18.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"I was minding my own business, gardening, when it struck up from behind and boofed me on the head.... I’ve decided to wear a hat today because I don’t want it to happen again."

Said Paul Boys, 64, quoted in "In pursuit of the hawk divebombing tall men in Hertfordshire/A Harris’s hawk is terrorising the village of Flamstead, where about 20 people have been attacked in the past fortnight" (London Times).

The hawk was minding his own business too, but its business is boofing tall men.

"Boof," the noun, has been around since 1825. It's "A blow that makes a sound like a rapid, brief movement of air" (OED).

I like the village name, Flamstead, which just means "place of the Flemings." There's an annual Flamstead Scarecrow Festival....

Sunrise — 7:02, 7:13.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

While I was taking the second photograph a sandhill crane flew just over my head. It was especially nice, because I was just watching a movie that had a lot of birds in it — "The Boy and the Heron."