Crunchy crustacean

Just a few short days ago, I was surprised to discover that my blog had reached the status of "Multicellular Microorganism" in the Truth Laid Bear blogospheric ecosystem. And I said, optimistically, onward and upward to the next stage of "Wiggly Wormhood". Well... Now something very unexpected has happened — for reasons that I do not understand at all, my blog has rocketed past Wiggly Wormhood and right into the "Crunchy Crustacean" neighborhood!

The complete Truth Laid Bear ecosystem:

Higher Beings
Mortal Humans
Playful Primates
Large Mammals
Marauding Marsupials
Adorable Rodents
Flappy Birds
Slithering Reptiles
Crawly Amphibians
Flippery Fish
Slimy Molluscs
Lowly Insects
Crunchy Crustaceans
Wiggly Worms
Multicellular Microorganisms
Insignificant Microbes

I'm even more puzzled now than I was on my blog's last evolutionary jump. But...I can't help but gloat over the way my blog is zipping up through the ecosystem's hierarchy! It's moved up three levels in a week — if I could keep up this rate, I might actually live long enough to see my blog make "Slithering Reptile", or (gasp) "Adorable Rodent"!

Now if only I understood why this was happening, so I could do more of the "right thing"!

Black-headed Grosbeak

Black-headed grosbeaks (pheucticus melanocephalus) migrate to our area and stay here spring through fall every year. The first time we saw them, we only saw an occasional bird; now there are several pairs who are regular visitors to our feeders. I've never seen them eat anything but oil sunflower seeds, but perhaps we're spoiling them.

One thing that strikes me as odd about these birds is that they are quite timid, even though they're quite large (jay-sized) and have very sturdy-looking beaks (I'll bet they could do some damage to my ears with those!). And yet they are amongst the first birds to fly as we approach the feeders, or even our windows. About the only bird species we have that's more timid is the hooded oriole...

The center picture is a non-breeding (juvenile?) female; the others are breeding males.

As usual, click on a picture for a larger view.

House finches

There are three common finch species in our area, according to Sibley: Purple Finch (carpodacus purpureus, Cassin's Finch (carpodacus cassinii, and the House Finch (carpodacus mexicanus. And they're challenging to tell apart, even with Sibley's excellent paintings and descriptions. But...we believe these are House Finches, judging mostly by the female's appearance. Whatever flavor of finch these are, they are the single most common songbird to visit our feeders. Often we have twenty or more of them feeding at once, mainly on oil sunflower seed and on safflower seed (which the finches love, but the jays don't).

These finches have been on our feeders since about 30 seconds after we first put them out. They're here year round, with their beautiful song (especially in the spring!) cheering us every time we hear them. Which is most of the time . They pore through prodigous quantities of sunflower and safflower seed, most evidenced by the thickness of the hulls they leave under the feeders. Their beaks are strong enough to crack the hulls directly, so they can eat very efficiently.

As usual, you can click on any picture for a larger view.

Lesser Goldfinches

Over the past few years, lesser goldfinches (carduelis psaltria) have become one of the most frequent visitors to our feeders. They particularly love the Nyjer thistle seed, which we have out in a half-dozen or so feeders. They're amongst the bravest of the visiting birds we have, sometimes lighting on the feeder even when we're carrying it back after refilling it.

What makes this especially delightful for us is that for the first five years or so that we lived here, we couldn't entice these little birds to our feeders. We hung a thistle seed feeder out for all those years, moving it around various places in our yard to attract them. Finally, about three years ago I placed the feeder on a pole in an area of our yard that was far removed from our house — and our feeder was discovered! Within a few weeks, we were being visited by dozens of goldfinches a day. Then we started putting up more feeders near the house, and the goldfinches figured it out. Now we're going through 40 to 50 pounds of thistle seed every month (and that stuff is expensive!), but we're rewarded by an all-day display of dozens of birds. It's not at all unusual for every single one of the perches on every thistle seed feeder to be occupied — sometimes by two birds! In the springtime the golden-yellow color of the males is something to behold; they're considerably more muted now...

Click on any picture for a larger view...

The first draft

Scott Ott at Scrappleface has a wonderful post on the Durbin apology, in which he posits the existence of a first draft that was considerably different than what Durbin actually delivered. An example:

Durbin: "I offer my apology for those offended by my words. I promise to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation."
First Draft: "I offer my resignation from the U.S. Senate. I plan to seek a non-political job so I can get back in touch with real Americans and find out why they love this country so much."

Don't miss the whole thing!

Aligned moons

The Cassini probe, in orbit around Saturn, continues delivering outstanding scientific results day in and day out. It's a largely unheralded hero of space exploration; I hardly ever see a mention of it in the MSM. 'Tis a shame, because it's a terrific example of an international team of scientists and engineers focusing on real science results instead of romantic human exploration "results".

I sure would like to see us spending less on manned exploration and more on things like Cassini-Huygens...

Anyway, here's what the official Cassini site says about this magnificent photo (click for a larger view):

Cassini looks toward Saturn's night side in this view, capturing a glimpse of Dione's tortured surface in the foreground and a far-off view of Epimetheus beyond Saturn. The spacecraft was just a 10th of a degree above the ringplane when this image was taken.

Parts of Dione's surface have been stretched and ripped apart by tectonic forces. Some of these faults are visible here, as is a large impact basin (not seen in NASA Voyager spacecraft images) near the moon's south pole. Although this crater's diameter has not yet been measured by imaging scientists, it appears to be wider than 250 kilometers (155 miles), which would make it the largest impact structure yet identified on this moon. Dione is 1,118 kilometers (695 miles) across.

Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) presents a similar face here to that revealed in a spectacular false-color view from March, 2005 (see Epimetheus: Up-Close and Colorful ).

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 910,000 kilometers (570,000 miles) from Dione, 1.28 million kilometers (800,000 miles) from Epimetheus and 1.42 million kilometers (880,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 5 kilometers (3 miles) per pixel on Dione and 9 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel on Epimetheus.

APOD

APOD brings us...

What do Saturn's rings look like from the other side? From Earth, we usually see Saturn's rings from the same side of the ring plane that the Sun illuminates them. Geometrically, in the above picture taken in April by the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn, the Sun is behind the camera but on the other side of the ring plane. Such a vantage point gives a breathtaking views of the most splendid ring system in the Solar System. Strangely, the rings have similarities to a photographic negative of a front view. For example, the dark band in the middle is actually the normally bright B-ring. The ring brightness as recorded from different angles indicates ring thickness and particle density of ring particles. Images like these are also interesting for what they do not show: spokes. The unexpected shadowy regions once recorded by the Voyager missions when they passed Saturn in the early 1980s are not, so far, being seen by Cassini. Extra credit: Can you spot the small moon (Prometheus) among the rings?

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Quote for the day

When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

   William Shakespeare (King Lear)