I like the bubbly Canvasback, too

Rick Wright offers some of his unconventional picks for this season’s art competition for the Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp.

This is not a decoy, not a duck, but the self-conscious simulacrum of a duck/decoy, and in its grotesque combination of the organic and the artificial, the living and the not, this figure brings together eloquently the concerns, shared and conflicting, of hunters and birders, reminding us all of where the duck stamp comes from and all the fine things it has led to over the years.

It might win, but it won’t. I predict that next year’s stamp will be pedestrian and placative, like all its predecessors. I’m still buying it, though.

Only the weapons are fake

Alexis Hauk profiles Robb Hunter, armorer and fight choreographer. Hunter worked on the epic fight in act 2 of Superior Donuts for Studio Theatre’s production.

Weapons alone don’t transform a decent fight scene into a meaningful one, though, and Hunter believes that each piece should say something about a character—or at least it should emerge from its environment. “I get a little sad when people are like, ‘We’re doing Macbeth. I need 12 swords and a few shields,” he says. “The audience doesn’t know what they’re missing—until you do it for them differently.”

Bocce balls

Brian Hayes meets Stanley Crawford and gets to know the New Mexico acequia system.

The water in an irrigation ditch is a shared resource, like the unfenced common pastures that so famously became so tragic in early-modern England. In fact, the irrigation ditch is even more vulnerable to selfish exploitation than a pasture that’s equally available to all: Those on the upper reaches of the ditch have it within their power to divert all the flow into their own fields, depriving those below. Yet they choose not to do so. What explains their forbearance?

Subject: Check Your Email and Respond within 48hours!

Geoffrey K. Pullum marks up a distinctly clumsy Nigerian scam e-mail message.

Strange though it may seem, the scammer’s best interests are served if the email doing the phishing is ludicrously incompetent and transparently suspicious. He isn’t after you or me; he’s after the poor, lonely, gullible, housebound pensioner next door, the rare uninformed shut-in who has never heard of Nigerian scams and for whom the dream of a windfall will be attractive enough to justify handing over a bank account authorization password.

Three and a half cents a pound

Mark Bittman visits an industrial-scale tomato farm in California, and finds it good.

The tomatoes are bred to ripen simultaneously because there is just one harvest. They’re also blocky in shape, the better to move along conveyor belts. Hundreds of types of tomatoes are grown for processing, bred for acidity, disease resistance, use, sweetness, wall thickness, ripening date and so on. They’re not referred to by cuddly names like “Early Girl” but by number: “BQ 205.”

I tasted two; they had a firm, pleasant texture and mild but real flavor, and were better than any tomatoes — even so-called heirlooms — sold in my supermarket.

Some links: 66

  • Steve Adair exlains the ducks-winter wheat connection in the upper Great Plains.
  • Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley visit the banding station and other research facilities at Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve. When I was a beginning birder in the 90s, Susan and I visited Powdermill with a group led by Jane Huff, back when “the Bobs” (Mulvihill and Leberman) ran things. They’ve added a lot to the place since then. ᔥ Birdchat

Flotsam

Tracy Mincer and Linda Amaral-Zettler report their findings from examining the small bits of plastic floating in the ocean. Using DNA analysis and electron microscopy, they found 50 species of microorganism living there, including a two-level trophic web.

As with many ecosystems, the bottom of the food chain was occupied by things that photosynthesise. These included unicellular algae called diatoms and dinoflagellates, and photosynthetic bacteria known as cyanobacteria. Usually, such creatures swim freely in the ocean. They therefore have to work hard to stay near the surface, where light for photosynthesis is abundant. By hitching a ride on a piece of floating plastic, they can stay near the surface without effort.

They also found evidence that suggests, but does not clearly establish, that bacteria are actively breaking down these energy-rich, petroleum-based substances.

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SALVIATI. I have heard such things put forth as I should blush to repeat—not so much to avoid discrediting their authors (whose names could always be withheld) as to refrain from detracting so greatly from the honor of the human race. In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or hot rage—if indeed it does not make them ill.

—Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), trans. Stillman Drake

Prince George’s wetlands

Last Saturday’s field trips took us to two freshwater wetlands in southern P.G. County, one well-known among naturalists, the other decidedly off the beaten path.

We met M-NCPPC ranger Chris Garrett at Suitland Bog. Chris is an accomplished trip leader who knows his park and what’s important to see, how to move the group along, and when to just take a moment and look and listen.

The park lies in the watershed of Henson Creek, a small trib of the Potomac. It’s actively managed: one of Chris’s great challenges is preventing the bog (technically it’s a fen, as much of the water comes from seeps) from drying out under the pressure of encroaching maples and willows. And there is Microstegium at the doorstep.

paler redSeveral of the orchids on the plant list printed in the park brochure are probably extirpated, but Chris was able to point out Green Wood Orchis (Platanthera clavellata). He also found for us Ten-Angled Pipewort (Eriocaulon decangulare), the tiny Spatulate-leaved Sundew (Drosera intermedia), Halberd-leaved Greenbrier (Smilax pseudochina), and Red Milkweed (Asclepias rubra). We also got good looks at Netted Chain Fern (Woodwardia areolata), this time in fruit—alas, my snapshots were not satisfactory.

nicely set offerect and readyOn the slopes leading down to the bog (sorry, fen), a Common Wood-Nymph (Cercyonis pegala) was on the wing (a first for me), and Chris showed us a fine patch of Lycopodium, including patches with sporangia.

needs TLCChris and the class moved south to Cheltenham Wetlands Park, a 200-odd acre tract next door to a Homeland Security facility. The park is sometimes likened to a better-known park across the river as “Huntley Meadows Park without the people,” or the amenities, for that matter. There is no visitor center, parking is on the outside of a locked gate, and those fellows from DHS might give you the stink-eye. The budget for keeping the boardwalks in trim is also lacking.

all to ourselvesBut it’s a charming little wetland, all the same. Stories differ as to how the water showed up in the wetland to begin with. The property was once home to an array of radio antennas (like HMP) (you can see remnants of the supporting poles here and there) and was managed by the U.S. Navy. One story is that a brass hat ordered the low spots to be dredged to support bass fishing; another is that the access road to the radio antennas formed a dike that retained water from periodic floods of Piscataway Creek.

ready to eatflower and fruitBird life at late morning was stil jumping: I counted 18 species heard or seen. Swallowtails of various sorts were numerous, and the Eastern Kingbird we saw was likely snacking on them. Arrowwood Viburnum (Viburnum dentatum) was in fruit, and Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) flowers were starting to mature. The destination plant for this scrub-shrub swamp is Common Bladderwort, with its itty-bitty yellow flowers emerging from the water above a haze of fine brown roots below the surface.