Murmurations

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A murmuration of starlings arriving at Gretna in the
Scottish Borders on November 1, 2011.
Photos by Owen Humphreys–PA/Landov.

From Time:

No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above Gretna, Scotland. The birds gather in magical shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s bite. Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. Even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ acrobatics, which rely on the tiny bird’s quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock. Despite their show of force in the dusky sky, starlings have declined significantly in the UK in recent years, perhaps because of a drop in nesting sites. The birds still roost in several of Britain’s rural pastures, however, settling down to sleep (and chatter) after the evening’s ballet.

See the whole series of photos at Time LightBox.

h/t to Chris & Joel

Image of the Day

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Our friend Theresa's dad is a falconer and painter viking named Tomahawk.

Happy Mother's Day

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Violet the red-tailed hawk, who nests just outside
the office window of NYU President John Sexton, tends
to her first eyas (that's baby hawk in nature-speak),
on May 6. Nicely done, mom.
Photo by Emily S. Rueb for The New York Times.

The highly addictive hawk-cam is here.

Brothers Gotta Hug

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A new Women song?! This is potentially great news – maybe they don't hate each other after all.



From a split 7″ with Friendo, Fair Ohs + Cold Pumas available from Faux Discx.

(via Suspence x Gorilla vs. Bear)

Image of the Day

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On Saturday afternoon this impression of a hawk appeared on our window. We're thinking that maybe our small cat Inez was sitting on the sill and the hawk dove down to get her, not realizing the window was there.

Yesterday morning we went to see if there was a bird on the ground in the park below the window, but didn't find one... so we're hoping it survived and that it means good luck for everyone.

Image of the Day

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Jeroen Diepenmaat: Pour des dents d'un blanc éclatant et saines, 2005. (Record players, vinyl records, taxidermied birds, and sound. Dimensions variable.) From The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, an exhibition exploring "the culture of vinyl records within the history of contemporary art" – through February 6, 2011 at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University. Artists exhibited include Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Jasper Johns, Christian Marclay, Mingering Mike, Dario Robleto, Ed Ruscha, Malick Sidibe, Carrie Mae Weems, and many more. Info and images here.

Family Slideshow Part 2

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Some pics from our rainy second day of mini-vacation a few weekends ago on Whidbey Island – hiking up beautiful Mount Eerie, on to Anacortes for lunch, and later to near-empty Fort Ebey State Park.

Click here to see pics from day one.

11:15 AM

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Julie Doiron "Lovers of the World" from I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day (Jagjaguwar, 2009) info

(Photo: Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, January 2010)

Bonus Cat

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Inez and her friend the goose lamp find a spot in the sun

Tiny Dancers

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I happened to catch a great episode of Nature on PBS last night called Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air. It was almost magic – the color and footage were hard to believe.

Apparently there are over 8,000 species of flowers in the Americas alone that are pollinated solely by hummingbirds. How can you not love an animal that has evolved in perfect symbiosis with something equally fragile and beautiful?

Also, is it just me, or do the colors of the birds and the flowers seem perfectly complementary?

You can watch the whole episode here and decide for yourself.

Image of the Day

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Here's an image I found on the web whilst drinking some refreshing Canada Dry ginger ale and eating my lunch (smoked salmon with tabasco and a side of carrots – quite fantastic, no?) It's a sheet music cover for "The Owls Serenade" by HW Petrie, [self-proclaimed] "composer of the great successes 'I Don't Want to Play In Your Yard' and 'You Can't Play In Our Yard Any More.'" (Click to enlarge.)

The state of the union is objectively shite but things like that remind me that the history of the union is weird and great. More old sheet music here.

...
Late-breaking update:
Actually, Obama's State of the Union speech tonight made me feel a bit better about the state of the union. Talk is just talk but at least his sounds good. I still believe in the guy, and I'm not one of these people that thought everything would change overnight – he has a lot to deal with – I just think he needs to apply more pressure.
Anyway, enough of all that.

Bird of Music

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Via a comment from photographer Valéry Lorenzo, a musical piece by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot – beautifully filmed and such a cool idea. Get more info here.

Image of the Day

. Gregory Blackstock The Great World Crows - Common, 2009 (marker on paper, 24 x 49), $4400. On view now at Garde Rail's online gallery – click here for detail shots and more images.

More evidence that crows are brilliant:

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[via SLOG]

Also:

East of the Mountains

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We spent last weekend at my parents' farm in Northern Idaho. When we left Seattle on Friday evening the weather forecast looked great, so we tossed our sleeping bags and tent in the back of the Jeep with the idea that we'd bunk outside.

Soda Lake, Columbia National Wildlife Refuge

We planned to make the drive in our customary five hours, but after four hours in stop-and-go traffic over Snoqualmie Pass (I'm sad to say that NYC apparently has nothing on Seattle in this department), we were thrilled to collapse around midnight at the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge just outside of Othello. It was surprisingly warm and there was not a cloud to be seen so we slept without the rain fly. The night sky in the middle of the Eastern Washington desert is incredible and the sunrise in the morning was beautiful – it took what seemed like hours for the light to seep over the 360-degree horizon. The photo above is the view from our campsite in the morning.

Some birds had made their nest at the information center in the
campground, and didn't take too kindly to Strath taking this photo.

The stated purpose of the trip, other than just getting away for the holiday, was to help my parents with some work on the little cabin on their property that they saved from collapsing last fall and are now slowly fixing up.

We did some work, but there was also plenty of time for relaxing – reading, taking some walks, eating some good food, sitting around and shooting the shit, and just enjoying the scenery.

The cabin looks out into some woods. This is the view looking back.
At some point the beams sticking out will be a porch
that wraps around three sides.

Cocktail hour (beer and peanuts) started promptly
at 5 p.m. every day.

The late spring is a beautiful time of year in this part of the state – everything is green and in bloom.

Looking east from the cabin to Potato Hill,
just outside of Deary, Idaho.

In the end, we got a little accomplished, and did a lot of nothing. All in all, a pretty nice way to spend our first Memorial Day weekend back in the Northwest.

And

I've just returned from a few days in ice-cold NYC for some client meetings, so most of this week's posts will be on the stuff I ran across during that brief whirlwind. Here are some photos to kick it off…

Marlene Dumas from her current show Measuring Your Own Grave at MoMA

Swoon in Chelsea

Birds in Bryant Park that reminded me of Littlejeans, both because they look like him, and because he used to stare at this particular fun-size species out the window and think murderous thoughts.

A little garbage rabbit, 22nd Street, Chelsea

53rd Street, Midtown

27th Street, Chelsea

People on 10th Avenue watching news of the crash landing in the Hudson.

My brother outside of Jones, where we had brunch before I left. They were playing the Cave Singers and Dead Moon as we sipped bloody marias and ate our sausage, eggs and grits at the counter. Seemed like a good way to end the trip.

…and here's what I came back to:


I will love and miss New York forever, but I'll be back a lot.
And Seattle? When it's sunny out? Absolutely stunning.

John Baldessari, Goya Series: And, 1997,
from Artist's Choice + Vik Muniz = Rebus at MoMA