The Best Holiday Ever

[personality check: which pumpkin was carved by Annie and which by me?]

There’s nothing better than Halloween, a day full of a darkly joyous appreciation of the macabre and chilling! Halloween, a celebration of the end of the year that has evolved from its violent roots—full of symbolic or less-symbolic killings to guarantee a plentiful harvest and the eventual return of the sun—to now require from us no more significant a sacrifice than our tooth enamel as we gnaw our way through bags of candy corn and “fun size” Snickers bars.

And speaking of gnawing, below are some photos (taken last year but different from the ones I posted last year) of the zoo’s lemurs discovering and enjoying their “enrichment” items of pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns:

#1 [red-fronted brown lemur:] Inspection:

...Followed by scent-marking:

#2 [ring-tailed lemur:] Introspection:

["whence came this curiously shaped manna?"
--it seems to ask.]

#3: The Discovery, Investigation, and Decision:

Happy Halloween!

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Flamingo Friday: Suspicion

I'm sure Number 42 is spreading lies about me…
—But how shall I find him out?

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Sometimes You Get Tired of Bamboo

What should I see this weekend but a panda—with every evidence of enjoyment—eating bunches of grass?

It was something of a shock to see Tian Tian plunging into the tufts of greenery and pulling out vast swathes of them to nosh on:

But then, bamboo comprises only 99% of a panda’s diet, after all: it would have to eat something else at some point. Especially since, according to the zoo’s website, their diet in the zoo includes “rice gruel” and “a special high-fiber biscuit.” That’s enough to make anyone turn to ornamental grasses for sustenance, if you ask me.

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Photo Sequence: How I'd Like to Get Up in the Morning

Come to think of it, that is how I get up some mornings...

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Flamingo Friday: Preen a Little Preen of Me

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Two Good Shots: The Snail at Cal State L.A.

I'm not sure what it was majoring in: maybe they have a Slow Food program?

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What We Saw at Mt. Vernon

We saw a great deal of historical stuff whose subject is not particularly pertinent to the theme of this blog, so I will only say that it does feel a bit disorienting to be simultaneously barraged with short films, placards, and docent speeches extolling the magnificence of George Washington as a giant (in so many ways) among men—one of those solitary Hero Figures America loves so much—and also be faced with information attempting to make more visible the lives and existence of the hundreds of slaves who worked on his estate as shoemakers, chefs, and farm- and house-workers, supplementing their daily half-ration of food with whatever wild game they could catch in their copious spare time.

Although we ourselves didn’t see any wild game, we did observe some animal life, including an enormous number of butterflies of many species (I recognized monarchs, cabbage whites, and swallow-tails, and that’s where my knowledge of insects ends) and a majestically circling turkey vulture that seemed rather disappointed that we were alive. We also saw all sorts of little warblers flitting through the gorgeous old trees—or, rather, I saw lots of warblers and insisted on pointing them out to Annie and our friends, who were very polite about it.

[look--it's a warbler!]

But, finally and perhaps most importantly, we saw sheep! Cute fun-size sheep with adorable curling horns and, best of all, some interest in coming over to see us as we crouched by the fence.

This particular sheep even appeared to enjoy being petted—all while I told it, in typical inform-cute-animals-of-the-obvious fashion, “You’re just so woolly! And you have such interesting pupils!”

History I can take or leave. But ovine bonding moments deserve to be cherished.

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Another Caption Challenge (#5)

[For further information, see this post]

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Flamingo Friday: Sunrise in Feathers

...Because this is a dawn cycle with birds, should I have called it “Morning Has Yolken”?

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Flotsam and Jetsam (II)

And the intrepid flock of mudsnails made their way across the sand flats towards the distant spire of what—they were certain—was an enormous decaying whelk: a wealth of delectable food awaiting the arrival of a determined and worthy gastropod...

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Flotsam and Jetsam (I)

This Columbus Day weekend Annie and I went again to Rehoboth Beach, DE. We saw a great deal of not-so-wild wildlife:

And we saw a fair amount of not-so-live wildlife:

[either a true jellyfish or
a ctenophore (comb jelly)]

[a fish]

[a jellyfish:
it's really most sincerely dead.]

During our seaside strolls we also observed an incident of intraspecific kleptoparasitism.

This phrase may sound complicated, but chances are, if you have siblings, you’ve either engaged in intraspecific kleptoparasitism or been a victim of it. Basically, it’s when you let somebody else of your species expend his/her energy acquiring food—and then you take it from them.

In this case, one gull (ring-billed, I think) had caught a crab, and another ring-bill dive-bombed the poor crab-catcher until s/he, harassed and distracted, dropped the crab, allowing the second gull to swoop in and grab the crustacean.

["Mwahaha."
--It seemed to say.]

Not content with having stolen the crab, the second gull added insult to injury by waving its prize in the first gull’s face (beak?). As we watched, we became convinced that the first gull was standing on its dignity, pretending indifference to its robber’s taunts.

[“Crab? What cr—oh, that crab;
I didn’t want that old thing anyway.”]

The empty-beaked gull, making an attempt at nonchalance, eventually flew away and left the second gull to its stolen meal, but we suspected that it sent a curse of indigestion on its robber’s head.

No doubt the crab did the same.

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One Good Shot for the Long Weekend

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Flamingo Friday - When I Preen...

...I'm going for that Punk/Impressionistic look,

...y'know what I mean?

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Another Caption Challenge (#4): Wild(?) Wildlife

[For further information, see this post]

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Bella Gad, in Memory

Bella Gad was my grandmother’s cousin (or at least that’s as close as I’ll get to being precise about family relationships). This isn’t the place in which to paint a portrait of her even if I thought I could. I will say, though, that Bella was a mixture of extremely strong—even when baseless—opinions, great humor, and tremendous affection. She also had a very good eye and an excellent artistic sense, and I was always very flattered that she was such an enthusiastic supporter of my photography—not just the photos of animals looking winsome, but those in which I tried to frame things differently, to focus on form or abstraction or try a new perspective.

Bella lived in Israel and, although she spoke several languages, didn’t speak English; she and I wrote to each other in mutually half-forgotten French, resorting regularly to the dictionary. Several times a year, I would send her an “album,” a collection of my photos with brief captions in my scant French.

I was only starting to think about which photos I would include in an album this fall when I learned that she had died last week. These are some of the photos I would have included in that album. I wish she could see them.

Tu me manques, Bella.

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