Month: February 2023

At the park: 135

From this week’s report to/from the nest box team:

No surprises here: we already have merganser eggs in two of our boxes, #4 on the inflow and #5 on lower Barnyard Run. We chipped all of the boxes. #4 is now easily accessible — thank you!

However, access to the interior of box #84 is still a big problem.

I will pick up some spring hook-and-eye closures and we can fit them to boxes #60, #61, and others.

J’ai pété

First mucking about with ChatGPT. Not bad, not good. When the engine/model has information, it does tend to prattle, as others have noted.

DAVID. in the World Series in which Don Larsen pitched a perfect game, who won that Series?

CHATGPT. Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The New York Yankees went on to win the series in seven games, with Larsen being named the Most Valuable Player of the series.

D. Who caught him?

C. Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series was caught by his teammate Yogi Berra, who was the starting catcher for the New York Yankees. Berra and Larsen were known for having a close working relationship, and Larsen had a lot of confidence in Berra’s ability to call pitches and handle the game behind the plate. After the game, Larsen famously jumped into Berra’s arms in celebration.

D. Who was the last batter?

C. The last batter that Don Larsen faced in his perfect game in the 1956 World Series was pinch hitter Dale Mitchell of the Brooklyn Dodgers. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Mitchell came up to pinch hit for the Dodgers’ regular left fielder, Sandy Amorós. Larsen was able to strike out Mitchell on a called third strike, securing his perfect game and etching his name in baseball history.

D. Are you sure that Mitchell pinch hit for Amoros? The way I read the box score, he pinch hit for Sal Maglie.

C. I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are correct that Dale Mitchell pinch hit for the pitcher Sal Maglie in the bottom of the ninth inning for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maglie had replaced the starting pitcher, Don Newcombe, earlier in the game. Mitchell struck out on three pitches to end the game and complete Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and I apologize for any confusion caused.

Maglie pitched nine innings in this Game 5. Newcombe was chased in Game 2, pitching only 1.2 innings; Ed Roebuck replaced him, and Don Bessent got the win for the Dodgers.

Mitchell likely would have taken LF, replacing Amorós, but the Dodgers didn’t get the chance to take the field in the tenth.

The engine/model has a skin-deep understanding of this blog. Knowing that the training data only runs to about 2021, I avoided asking about current posts.

DAVID. are you familiar with the blog titled “A Honey of an Anklet”?

CHATGPT. Yes, I am familiar with the blog titled “A Honey of an Anklet”. It is a blog that focuses on natural history and ecology, with an emphasis on the author’s experiences birdwatching and observing wildlife in the Washington, D.C. area. The author, John B. Nelson [Ed.: Who he?], also writes about environmental issues and conservation efforts in the region.

D. Nice try guessing the author’s name. I am the author. My name is David L. Gorsline.

C. I apologize for the mistake, David. Thank you for correcting me. I’m glad to hear from the author of “A Honey of an Anklet”.

D. Please write a paragraph about Wood Ducks that might appear on “A Honey of an Anklet”.

C. Sure, here’s a paragraph about Wood Ducks that might appear on “A Honey of an Anklet”:

Wood Ducks are among the most striking of North American waterfowl. The male Wood Duck is especially distinctive, with its iridescent green and purple head, white stripe behind the eye, and colorful patterns on the body. Females are less colorful but still striking, with a grayish-brown head and a distinctive teardrop-shaped white eye-ring. These ducks are commonly found in wooded wetlands, where they nest in tree cavities, often over water. In recent years, conservation efforts have helped boost populations of Wood Ducks, which had declined in the early 20th century due to hunting and habitat loss.

[Ed.: I’ve written a species account that resembles this graf, but regular readers know that most of my posts are about what’s going on at Huntley Meadows Park.]

D. Has the blog written about visiting Maine?

C. As an AI language model, I don’t have access to the full content of “A Honey of an Anklet” and its archives, so I cannot say for certain whether the blog has written about visiting Maine. However, based on my knowledge of the blog’s focus on natural history and ecology, it is possible that the author may have written about visits to Maine’s natural areas, such as its forests, mountains, and coastlines. Maine is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, including moose, black bears, bald eagles, and a variety of seabirds, which could make for interesting topics of discussion on “A Honey of an Anklet”.

D. Who writes “A Honey of an Anklet”?

C. “A Honey of an Anklet” is written by David L. Gorsline. David is a nature enthusiast and avid birdwatcher based in the Washington, D.C. area. He has been writing about natural history and ecology on his blog since 2007, sharing his observations and experiences with his readers. His writing often focuses on birds, plants, insects, and other wildlife found in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as broader topics related to conservation, environmental issues, and outdoor recreation.

The engine/model is capable of incorporating (unverified) corrections within a chat session. 2007 is approximately correct. The response doesn’t ramble into my other pursuits and occupation.

But in another window:

DAVID. are you familiar with the blog titled “A Honey of an Anklet”?

CHATGPT. Yes, I am familiar with the blog titled “A Honey of an Anklet.” It is a nature blog written by Chris M. [Ed.: Who he?] in the Washington, DC area. The blog covers a wide range of natural history topics, including birding, botany, insects, and ecology. Chris M. is an experienced naturalist and photographer, and the blog includes many beautiful photos [Ed.: Hardly] of wildlife and natural landscapes.

D. Nope, wrong author again. I believe that the AI term is “hallucination.”

C. I apologize for the error in my previous response. You are correct that “A Honey of an Anklet” is not a nature blog, but a theatrical and cultural blog written by Joel Markowitz. I apologize for the confusion and any inconvenience it may have caused. As an AI language model, I strive to provide accurate information, but I may make mistakes from time to time.

D. I know Joel Markowitz. He writes about theater, but not on my blog.

C. I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. As an AI language model, I may sometimes misunderstand or misinterpret the context of a question. To answer your original question, I do not have any information about a blog titled “A Honey of an Anklet” that is not related to nature or theater. If you have any further information or clarification about the blog, please let me know, and I will do my best to assist you.

Some links: 90

seven methods of killing kylie jenner

I don’t know of a graceful way to put this: this play will resonate more with audiences who are different from me. Many of the work’s themes—prejudices in favor of light-skinned BIPOC, the shameful treatment of Sara Baartman (the so-called “Hottentot Venus”), an offhand homophobic remark unearthed from the deep social media timeline—have been elaborated elsewhere. And let us retire the trope of bringing up the house lights to implicate the audience.

The play does make it clear that, and why, Cleo (Leanne Henlon) is enraged. And the strongest element is the theatricalizing of the chaotic cacophony that is a viral thread, realized by Henlon and Tia Bannon as her friend Kara. Their physicalizing of emojis is quite the thing. Don’t understand current British slang and internet initialisms? It doesn’t matter. The playing is there.

  • seven methods of killing kylie jenner, by Jasmine Lee-Jones, directed by Milli Bhatia. Royal Court Theatre’s production, presented by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington

Personally, I have never understood the mania for all things Jenner-Kardashian. But that’s easy for me to say.

Great Backyard Bird Count 2023

Working around the weather (as usual), as well as some other appointments, I visited the Glade and Lexington Estates Park at suboptimal times. But I came back with a combined species count of 21. The Great Blue Heron in the little skid of a pond in Lexington Estates was the biggest surprise. There seems to be more Leatherleaf Mahonia (Berberis bealei) along the Glade than in years past—or maybe I’m just better at spotting it. Nasty stuff.

Woodend lichens foray

Another lichens walk with Natalie Howe, this time as part of a five-week class, and this time back in the friendly confines of Nature Forward’s Woodend Sanctuary. I excelled at finding sticks with not-lichens, like this one with a big patch of Giraffe Spots (Peniophora albobadia). But I did meet two taxa of Physcia, including Physcia stellaris, a Parmotrema, and a shadow lichen, Phaeophyscia rubrophulchra.

We walked the new trail, so most of the rocks were newly-placed and hadn’t acquired the requisite patina of lichens.

The one downer about lichens workshops is that they tend to take place when nothing much else is going on, so it’s always freezing and windy.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

HOTSPUR. Nay, I will. That’s flat!
[King Henry IV] said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo “Mortimer.”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.

Henry IV, Part 1, I:3

It’s fair to say that the ecological consequences of the introduction of European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris, EUST) into North America have been a (mostly adverse) mixed blessing. I’ve been told that EUSTs are favored by groundskeepers for golf courses, because the birds eat turf-destroying grubs—make of that what you will. And my grandmother had a particular animus against them; make of that what you will. I certainly wouldn’t knowingly park my car under a roost.

But perhaps we can retire the canard that the introduction happened at one place, at one time, by one man: Eugene Schieffelin, a drugmaker and socialite in New York. Research by Lauren Fugate and John MacNeill Miller, as reported by Jason Bittel, confirms that Schieffelin wasn’t the only American to release EUSTs, nor was he by any means the first. By the 1870s, “introductions were well underway,” decades before Schieffelin’s activity in 1890-1891.

According to the former president of the Acclimation Society of Cincinnati, between 1872 and 1874 the society released about four thousand European birds, including starlings.

“Acclimation” or “acclimitization” was a particularly boneheaded piece of nineteenth-century ecology that held that introduced species could improve an ecosystem.

Anglophone countries… focused instead on the ways importing species could increase the beauty, diversity, and economic yield of the local environment—sometimes because they themselves had destroyed it.

Most importantly—to answer a question that Rick Wright asked in a 2014 blog post— Schieffelin had no particular interest in the birds of Shakespeare. He just liked starlings. Fugate and Miller lay the myth on the desk of Edwin Way Teale, in an essay from 1948.

“[The starling’s] coming was the result of one man’s fancy,” he writes of Schieffelin: “His curious hobby was the introduction into America of all the birds mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.” Published more than forty years after Schieffelin’s death this sentence is the first time Shakespeare enters the story. It is hard to say where Teale got the idea.

Perhaps Teale was bemused by Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden, begun in 1913, years after Schieffelin’s death.

As Wright wryly observes,

With a Horatian eye to their capacity to delight and to profit, the [American Acclimatization] Society’s introductions over the years included everything from brook trout to Java finches, neither of which, if memory serves, ever trod the boards at the Globe.

Shakespeare’s one reference to Sturnus vulgaris (above) isn’t even pejorative; rather, the bird is recognized as a good mimic. Make of that what you will.