Speaking of mating, my mom just sent me a pornographic email. I think you’ll like it.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Caught love on the golf course.

The first picture is a Swainson’s Hawk. The second picture is the act of mating (warning: it is X-rated).

I had no idea two hawks were in the tree. I just focused on the first and then all of a sudden I hear this loud screaming, look up to see what looks like one hawk attacking another, realize they are mating (their wings were flapping like crazy), and hope to goodness the camera is still in focus as my finger hits the shutter button.

Whew, lots of excitement in one day. I took other pictures of the hawks; he moved to the next tree and smoked a cigarette and she preened herself.

The thing I can’t quite figure out is how many birds are in the tree. Sometimes I count three, other times four. Very kinky.

Update, 4/10/06 – Some have noticed what appears to be a penis originating from the male. This is actually the bird’s cloaca, protruding as he mates with the female.

Most birds do not have a penis, but rather one opening called the cloaca through which all wastes and reproductive gametes pass. For certain groups that do have a penis, it has evolved differently than in mammals, and is not a homologous structure.

For more information, see Avain Genitalia (pdf format), The Auk 115(4):826-828, 1998 by James V. Briskie.

A friend from Massachusetts sent me a couple of pictures last night, asking for help identifying a bird that got stuck in fishing line on the beach. Without a knife and the tides quickly rising, she couldn’t free it.

It’s a Red-necked Grebe, a heck of a bird in Texas. I’ve seen precisely one in my lifetime.

I think it’s a good reminder how much some of the little things matter. I see fishing line everywhere I go. I need to start picking it up everytime I see it.

And for anybody who likes to fish, keep in mind just how deadly your line can be if you leave it behind.

Don’t believe in demon possession? Then you obviously haven’t seen this video.

giant centipede eats mouse

I got it from JM O’Donnell over at Immunoblogging and he got it from Pharyngula.

It’s a video of a giant centipede, over a foot long, eating a mouse. One of the things that amazed me was the centipede’s ability to walk around carrying the mouse.

The video’s probably twice as long as it needs to be, but it gets the point across. The mouse squeels a bit but quickly becomes silent. And then there’s only munching. Lots and lots of munching.

If you enjoy the outcome being little less certain, have a look at their second video. The mouse puts up quite a valiant effort, even if the person with the camera pulls a Marty Stouffer.

Bon Appétit

My wife has got me reading a bloggish type site call The Sneeze. He leaves me in stitches I laugh so hard. For a typical example, take a look at this article on his wife’s suspected infidelity and his son’s eating habitats.

For readers that might be troubled by encountering profanity, I’ll warn you that The Sneeze tends to be pretty heavy with its use. The story linked to above is squeeky clean though.

My wife (the student teacher) told me of an absurb question that appeared in a fourth grade class on review material for the state assessment test. Can anyone spot the problems and provide a right answer? There is a set of numbers that gives a mathematically valid solution.

Bella’s age minus her brother’s age is 12. Bella’s brother is 4 times older than Bella. What are the ages of Bella and her brother?

When they said they were making the standards tests harder, I guess they weren’t kidding.

My wife just started the second half of her student teaching semester, this time in 4th grade.

You know how we all hear of the degrading effects public schools have on our children? Well, she brought home proof yesterday. Take a look at this bookmark they’re passing out to the kids…

Yep. I think there’s a underhanded agenda to prepare the little tikes for sex ed. Someone’s going to extremes to teach about the birds and the bees. After all, I would imagine that for some of the early bloomers, fourth grade is when they’d reach 1st base.

Now if this is fourth grade, I wonder when they’ll learn about 2nd and 3rd base. Don’t worry, being Texas, we won’t teach about the homerun.

(And if you don’t quite understand what I’m talking about, consider yourself blessed. You’re older, wiser, more mature, and unaware of the base system of describing inappropriate levels of dating behavior).

Well, the plot’s a little slow, but the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a live video feed of a nesting Barn Owl. Unfortunately, it lacks sound, so you can’t hear beautiful sounds of love like this.

She mostly sits and incubates the eggs, but in the few minutes I watch her, I saw her get up, walk around, and then come back and rotate the eggs with her bill. It’s an intimate view.

I’ve complained about it before and it’s nice to see that Google has finally listened. I knew it was only a matter of time before they came around and realized my importance.

I’ve edged ahead in the fierce contest for the number one ranking for the phrase ocellated on Google.

I can sleep well now.

I saw this story this morning, and as if to nudge me to blog about it, a reader sent the link in. The Washington Post has a story on global warming that’s worth reading. It’s nothing new, just more of the bleak picture of what we’re doing to the earth.

Now, I know there are doubters out there. And I know scientists occasionally get things wrong. And I also admit that this is not my area of expertise. But one of the things interesting about the story is that it hits upon biological changes to the warmer conditions. (Again, this is nothing new, we’ve been watching this happen for some time).

Fish and wildlife are following the retreating ice caps northward. Polar bears are losing the floes they need for hunting. Seals, unable to find stable ice, are hauling up on islands to give birth. Robins and barn owls and hornets, previously unknown so far north, are arriving in Arctic villages.

[...]

In this month’s issue of the journal Science, a team of U.S. and Canadian researchers said the Bering Sea was warming so much it was experiencing “a change from arctic to subarctic conditions.” Gray whales are heading north and walruses are starving, adrift on ice floes in water too deep for feeding. Warmer-water fish such as pollock and salmon are coming in, the researchers reported.

We’re seeing it in the die off of amphibians, in the expansion of species to higher elevations, in the earlier arrival of migrating birds returning to their nesting areas, and a thousand other places. One example taken by itself means nothing. But thousands of cases of organisms responding to their warming environment helps make a compelling case to what’s happening.