Just uploaded this from my phone, from last December’s trip to Hawaii. Ah, Don Quijote, the most eclectic of stores.
Sadly, we did not buy an Asian Zodiac Fortune Frog (or Rabbit) Figurine for the New Year. FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY, of course.
I will miss going to Don Quijote this December: the store in Kailua closed earlier this year, to make way for a Target. Will Target carry Asian Zodiac Fortune Frog Figurines for our amusement needs? I think not.
Noe sometimes helps Yan prepare for class. She is particularly fond of Landau’s Mechanics.
At least, she is fond of the way it tastes.
She’s fickle, though: the other day, Yan left his new copy of Goldstein’s Mechanics on the floor for literally two minutes. Now Goldstein also has a big chunk nibbled off the cover.
A New Zealand biologist has described a new species of hitherto unknown (to science, at least) flightless bird! What’s most surprising is that this species in from North America, and still exists today!
For more info, go here.
I missed last week’s post, but never fear, Noe is doing fine. Her latest hobby is nibbling on Yan’s students’ homework while he’s grading. Little brat. She ignores my students’ homework- I guess she prefers calculus to the essay format.
We did have her vet exam last week, and her arthritis is a bit worse than it was last year (not unexpectedly). Unfortunately, she’s starting to get cataracts, so her vision’s getting worse. This hasn’t really affected her getting around, but we’ve been noticing that she’s more easily startled than she used to be. So that’s a bummer, and a reminder that she’s getting older. But the rest of the exam was mostly fine.
We may have to start feeding her more pellets or alfalfa, because she’s lost some muscle tone. It seems to be in the area around her arthritis, along her spine. Maybe giving her a bit more protein will help with that. She’s now a bit over 9 years old, so definitely in the elderly pet stage of life.
In news from Australia, it appears that wild parrots are learning human speech- from other parrots.
Baby parrots learn their vocalizations from adult parrots. When an escaped (or intentionally released) pet parrot joins up with a wild flock, that parrot then teaches young birds the words it’s learned from humans.
Apparently, this phenomenon is a bit disturbing to Sydney residents, who are being serenaded by cries of “Hello there!”, and “What’s happening?”
I’m amused by the final quote in this Courier Mail article:
“I just hope a pet bird that’s been taught dirty words doesn’t join a flock because we don’t want to hear that kind of thing going around the back gardens.”
(h/t Birdchick)
Noe’s taking a trip to the vet today for her semi-annual checkup. So, here’s a photo of a wild Maryland bunny we saw a few weeks ago while walking to the Metro:
Can’t see it? Well, it was pretty well-camouflaged. And not too fazed by us stopping to stare at it. It just looked at us for a bit, then went back to munching away. Here’s a close-up:
Well, we’re two and a half weeks into the fall semester, and I’ve managed not to be steamrolled yet by the teaching-dissertating combination. I’m working on getting IRB approval to get user feedback on my visualization project, which is just about done. Of course, this means I’m not actually writing, but I’m making progress.
But who wants to hear about that? I will now present to you the highlights of the two days in the last two weeks that I actually got away from the house-school-Panera triangle.
Two weeks ago, we got out to College Park, had a nice lunch, bought some bike supplies, and had green tea frozen yogurt (yum). While we were eating lunch, this bird appeared, strolling down the sidewalk:
Now, there are two peacock colonies around the Orlando area, but they’re ~5 miles away from where we were. This bird looked pretty stressed. The owner of the restaurant brought out a bowl of water and some pine nuts, and he sort of pecked a bit at the nuts. But then he proceeded on his way, unfortunately heading out of the quiet residential neighborhood and onto a busy street.
After the whole business with the macaw, I was afraid we’d witness a tragic accident, but he proceeded to walk down the bike lane and eventually moved back to the residential side of the street. He was probably heading for the nearby park. I hope he’s found a more comfortable situation by now.
So, my other interesting outing was less harrowing. Last Saturday, we went to see the Orlando Lions– our 3rd-tier pro soccer team- playing in the USL Pro League championship. And…they won!
It was an exciting game- no one scored until the 89th minute, then the Lions did. Then, their opponents (the Harrisburg City Islanders) tied it in the last second of injury time. In overtime, the Islanders scored again, but the Lions managed to tie again at the last minute. So, it came down to penalty kicks, which the Lions won. I’m leaving out all the drama of players being ejected, including the Lions’ keeper, dramatic falls, etc. But it was good stuff.
For fans of “A Song of Ice and Fire”- the (unofficial?) team motto is apparently “Hear us roar.” Close enough 🙂
Of course, another highlight was one of the Lions’ booster clubs, a Trinidadian percussion band who played pretty much the whole game through. If all sporting events had their own percussion sections, I’d probably be more enthusiastic about sports overall.
Noe, May 2003:
The main visible difference between teen rabbit and elderly rabbit seems to be a bit of chub around the middle and looser skin. She hasn’t gotten grey fur, though- I wonder if old rabbits actually do.
The green on her paws is from newsprint.
Now back to work for me.
The fall semester has started this week, and the last few weeks leading up to it have been a whirlwind of getting set up for teaching, putting in conference proposals, and continuing to chip away on my visualization project. As a consequence of the latter, I am learning much more about birds than I thought I would. (Did you know that there is an Indonesian bird called the Satanic Nightjar? Now you do.)
All together, it has been a busy time. So, in an effort to at least keep posting occasionally on this blog, here are three recent bird-related links of interest:
Noe is a well-traveled bunny, not that she necessarily appreciates it. Here she is in Kona, circa 2003.
