Fooled by the Owlets

The owlets fooled me. Earlier tonight it looked like there was only one owlet left in the nest. That sent me out on a search (and, if necessary, rescue) mission. I looked everywhere I could think of for that owlet (three or four times), wanting to make sure it had found its way to a safe perch, or, if it hadn’t, to find it and put it on a safe perch. I had no luck finding the owlet, but I found

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Imagery to Conjure With

Good friend Jay Lake has been dreaming again. This one has been haunting me for a week. Imagery to conjure with, but also imagery that strikes deep and hurts.
Jay and I have very different minds and personalities, yet somewhere in all that there’re more common chords than I’d ever realized.
Ouch.

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Adventures with Jay Lake

My old friend Jay Lake discusses a dream in a recent blog post and refers to a series of real-life incidents, specifically:
“...a baby puke yellow Ford LTD wagon was in my life for a while back in the 1990s — that’s the car I flooded with raw sewage while driving it, if you’ve ever heard me tell that story; also the car I took over the river in Mexico on a canoe ferry. Also the car I was driving

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Owlet no. 1 Hatched

Owlet no. 1 hatched sometime between midnight and 3:30 AM. So, the activity in the nest box is going to steadily increase from this point on. This is when the viewing really starts to become interesting.

The first look at the owlet came a bit before 6 AM. Those curious, and those who have QuickTime installed, can view two, short time-lapse movies of the owlet moving around; one seen from the

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What is the CDC?

From Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC, pg. 38, by J.B. McCormick, M.D., S. Fisher-Hoch, M.D., and L.A. Horvitz. Here McCormick relates a story from a trip to Sierra Leone in March, 1976, as part of an effort to deal with the Lassa Fever virus.


[....] When we were introduced to the secretary of health for Sierra Leone, his first question was: “What is the CDC? Does that stand for the Colonial

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The Authoritarians

Ever since I finished reading it a few weeks ago, I've been meaning to recommend the book The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba. So, consider it recommended. It’s available online for free at the page linked-to above. The book’s been out since 2006, so it’ll already be familiar to a lot of people, but it was news to me when I learned of it a few months back, and I know

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Beware Your Socialist Roads

In a time when intellectual standards have dropped so low that any involvement of government in the lives of its citizens can be labelled “socialism,” it seem only appropriate to warn the U.S. populace against using its socialist roadways.
Here’s how the Carfree Times (always worth a read) March, 2010, issue lays out the facts, as supplied by that well known band of socialist agitators that is

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Exploiting?

From an old favorite:
"Exploiting?" asked Dirk. "Well, I suppose it would be if anybody ever paid me, but I do assure you, my dear Richard, that there never seems to be the remotest danger of that. I live in what are known as hopes. I hope for fascinating remunerative cases, my secretary hopes that I will pay her, her landlord hopes that she will produce some rent, the Electricity Board hopes

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In Which I Appear on the Bamberger Ranch Blog

I've just learned that I'm putting in an appearance on the Bamberger Ranch Journal this week. Thanks, David, for the kind words, and for plugging the owl cam’. (BTW, that blog post was delayed not by David, but by me, because I haven't been checking my email often enough while I've been out of the office letting my knee heal.)
Anyone viewing that blog entry should be warned that there’s no such

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Three Eggs Confirmed

My guess yesterday was that the third egg had been laid, and that that was what had shifted Mme. Owl into serious brooding mode. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture an overhead view yesterday to confirm that guess. This evening, however, I was able to capture such a view, and, as you’ve undoubtedly already noticed, there is a third egg. Whether it was laid yesterday or today will likely

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Two Eggs and Counting

Here’s this evening’s shot from the nest box attic cam’. (You can see this morning’s image, too.) As expected, egg no. 2 was laid today.



Gehlbach’s research says an eastern screech owl, Megascops asio, clutch will average 3.75 eggs, if memory serves, so I’m expecting two more eggs, although clutches of up to six eggs are possible.

Note that the eggs are almost spherical, unlike the eggs of (

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The RF Scale

I’ve automated another one of the surveys from Bob Altemeyer’s book The Authoritarians. (My first effort, the “RWA Scale” is discussed in a previous entry on this blog.) This time, it's the “RF Scale.” What it’s measuring will be pretty obvious, pretty quickly. Just in case there’s any doubt, I’ve included Altemeyer’s description of the purpose of the survey at the end of the page.

Because this

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One Egg and Counting

Pat asked if I’d ever share the overhead views from the attic camera that I use for egg counting. Here’s just such a view that was captured early this morning. It shows the egg that was laid on the 22nd. (I expect to see that another egg was laid today, but won’t be able to confirm that expectation until Mme. Owl exits the nest box this evening.)



In previous years, I’d’ve included images like

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Screech Owl Cam' Operational

Some video capture hardware turned-out to have stopped working in the two years since the last nesting, but after some pulling of hair, swapping of hardware, and editing of web pages, Chris’ Eastern Screech Owl Nest Box Cam’ is live again.

What with surgery and an unknown recovery period starting tomorrow, I can’t say there’ll be regular status reports, or daily image round-ups, but the video

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Mme. Owl is Spending the Day in the Nest Box

Mme. Owl is currently sitting on the floor of the nest box in a brooding posture. If nesting hasn't strictly begun yet, it looks as though it will do so in next the day or two at the most.

I'm not sure when I'll have the Owl Cam' up and running again. If I can get it running tonight, I will. But, if that doesn't work out, things immediately become very unpredictable, as I'll be undergoing

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Mme. Owl Prepares the Nest Box

A female eastern screech owl visited my nest box this morning. I noticed the visit entirely by chance around 3:15 AM, and she stayed another 20 minutes, while I watched her performing actions characteristic of a female preparing to nest – namely pushing around the bedding material on the floor of the box to create a depression in which eggs could be laid.

My screech owls may be running later

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Eleven Hours in Owl Box Hell

I brought the owl box down around 6 PM on Sunday to remove a fox squirrel. This squirrel seemed familiar with the routine; with box open on the ground, I just stepped to one side, explained the situation, and the squirrel obligingly bolted out the other side. Simple enough.

It was a short time later that I made the terrible mistake. As followers of my screech owl cam' may remember, the

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The RWA Scale – Investigating “public opinion concerning a variety of social issues”

A friend (thanks D.C.) brought an interesting book to my attention the other day, the cornerstone of which is a survey known as the “RWA Scale” developed by Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba. The survey describes itself as “an investigation of general public opinion concerning a variety of social issues,” and saying anything more would probably be a mistake. Anyway, because the book and

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A 2nd Year Cooper’s Hawk

A recent visitor to my bird feeder, identified by Sallie, my raptor rehabber friend: “This is a 2nd year Cooper's Hawk. Just the species I’d expect to go for your sparrows. (Hatched in 2009.)” … Just one of several ways that my bird feeder feeds birds. This hawk is welcome back anytime. Unfortunately for it, but fortunately for the sparrows, she/he may not want to come back. The pile of

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Owl Sighting

There was a screech owl in a brooding posture on the floor of my box a few hours ago. A male would be unlikely to adopt that posture, in my experience, so I assume the owl was a female whose mate must have recently claimed the nest box, and talked her into trying it on for size. (I heard a male in my back yard calling quite persistently one night last week.) She's gone now, but this is an

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Airports

It can hardly be a coincindence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "as beautiful as an airport."Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk

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Network Neutrality

The following is the slightly corrected text of a comment I submitted to whichever part of the government was studying network neutrality, and requesting comments from the public, back in mid-January. I submitted this comment as a private citizen, but, of historical necessity, it references my employer. Let me be perfectly clear about this: I in no way speak for, or represent, my employer.

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When do Hedgehogs Start Hibernating?

He phoned the BBC and asked to be put through to his department head.“Oh, hello, Arthur Dent here. Look, sorry I haven’t been in [the office] for six months but I’ve gone mad.”“Oh, not to worry. Thought it was probably something like that. Happens here all the time. How soon can we expect you?”“When do hedgehogs start hibernating?”“Sometime in Spring, I think.”“I’ll be in shortly after that.”— So

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The Moon – Been There, Done That

Our Moon, Third Quarter, February 5, 2010.©2010 Chris W. Johnson
While I’ve had my back turned in recent weeks, the Obama administration announced the scrapping of NASA’s Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon, explore asteroids, service distant space telescopes, and lay the groundwork for human exploration of Mars. I’ve since read several articles about this, and still have no

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"X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight" a Free E-Book from NASA

NASA is offering the book X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight by Dennis R. Jenkins as one of their small library of free e-books for most popular viewers. (Thanks to NASA Watch for pointing it out.) Personally, while e-books may indeed be the future (at least until civilization next stumbles, and they – trapped in their unusable viewers – all become inaccessible for a few centuries, if not

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“Texas Rancher an Unlikely Environmentalist”

NPR’s All Things Considered ran their story on my friend David Bamberger yesterday. They've provided a nice page to go along with it containing what I presume is the text of the story, photos, and a link to the audio. I haven't had a chance to listen, yet (I’m operating on a weird schedule), but I encourage anyone so much as curious to have a look/listen.
It's a shame that it can be considered “

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Bamberger Story on NPR, Probably this Friday

I'm happy to see my friends at the Preserve getting some more well deserved publicity, and to pass along advance word of it. This time, the publicity is from National Public Radio. Thank you, NPR.

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Refracted Moonlight

Moonlight refracted in a passing cloud at about half-past midnight. The moon is too overexposed to be distinguished, and the cloud is blurred by its own motion during the moderately long exposure required to capture its subtle colors, but the rainbow of colors in the cloud is clearly visible. (A little saturation enhancement helped, too.)
I can’t recall having seen this phenomenon before. Maybe

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Maze Wars SVG version 1.0b3 Released

Maze Wars SVG, version 1.0b3, has been released. This version began as a minor revision to eliminate an asymmetry between the rules applied to the bots and to the human players. Specifically, for lack of a check to prevent it, bots were able to move and turn at the same time, which human players could not do. Making the bots separate their move and turn operations seemed like it would be a

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Nest Boxes are “Go” – Squirrel is MIA

The conversion of my old bird roosting box to a squirrel box is finally completely complete. It’s one thing to finish the box itself; it’s quite another to iron-out all of the miscellaneous, but critical details, like how to mount the thing at a particular place in a specific tree, especially when the tree doesn’t have even one purely vertical limb. Also important, and thoroughly interrelated:

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Owl Box Work, Sorta

As usual, I'm doing this later than I should have, but fans of Chris' Eastern Screech Owl Nest Box Cam' will be interested to know that—better late than never—I am in the process of preparing the box for owl occupation. At the moment, the major work is on fox squirrel eviction. As always, I hate kicking out the little mammals, especially when the weather has been so bad, and pups may be on the

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Gatekeeper Released 21 Years Ago Today

Twenty one years ago today, on January 2nd, 1989, I released version 1.0 of the freeware Gatekeeper anti-virus system for Macintosh. It would have been better to note its twentieth anniversary a year ago, what with twenty being a big round number and all, but, frankly, I forgot.

Anyway, it was 21 years ago today. For reasons now obscure, it wouldn't appear in "comp.binaries.mac" until the 13th

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Maze Wars SVG version 1.0b2 Released

Maze Wars SVG version 1.0b2 has been released. The closest thing to a functional change is the addition a partial work-around for a Firefox 3.5.x SVG rendering bug that made the eyeball on the game’s first web page render incorrectly. No code changes, other than the deletion of some old, commented-out material. No changes in game play.

Also, the beginnings of a web site for the game can now be

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Maze Wars SVG version 1.0b1 Released

Early this morning, Maze Wars SVG version 1.0b1 was released. This retro multi-player first-person shooter had a couple of the inevitable bugs that always seem to be discovered only after a product is announced to the world. But they were exceedingly minor bugs. And they're gone now.

Enjoy.

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