lost

Shuichi Nakano, "Searching for Paradise" - more at my Tumblr outpost and at the always excellent Pink Tentacles

This should be animated...

From Aristotle's History of Animals, Book IX:

There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities or subsist on the food...

There is enmity also between the owl and the wren; for the latter also devours the owl's eggs. In the daytime all other little birds flutter round the owl-a practice which is popularly termed 'admiring him'-buffet him, and pluck out his feathers; in consequence of this habit, bird-catchers use the owl as a decoy for catching little birds of all kinds.

The so-called presbys or 'old man' is at war with the weasel and the crow, for they prey on her eggs and her brood; and so the turtle-dove with the pyrallis, for they live in the same districts and on the same food; and so with the green wood pecker and the libyus; and so with kite and the raven, for, owing to his having the advantage from stronger talons and more rapid flight the former can steal whatever the latter is holding, so that it is food also that makes enemies of these. In like manner there is war between birds that get their living from the sea, as between the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe; and so between the buzzard on one side and the toad and snake on the other, for the buzzard preys upon the eggs of the two others; and so between the turtle-dove and the chloreus; the chloreus kills the dove, and the crow kills the so-called drummer-bird.

The aegolius, and birds of prey in general, prey upon the calaris, and consequently there is war between it and them; and so is there war between the gecko-lizard and the spider, for the former preys upon the latter; and so between the woodpecker and the heron, for the former preys upon the eggs and brood of the latter. And so between the aegithus and the ass, owing to the fact that the ass, in passing a furze-bush, rubs its sore and itching parts against the prickles; by so doing, and all the more if it brays, it topples the eggs and the brood out of the nest, the young ones tumble out in fright, and the mother-bird, to avenge this wrong, flies at the beast and pecks at his sore places.

It's been a while...

... because I've been spinning my wheels - or, the wheels have been spinning me.

(Wretched cat!)

state birds

 "Pelican in her piety": the state flag of Louisiana depicts a mother Pelican wounding herself to feed her young with blood

  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal speaking to reporters at East Grand Terre Island - with oil-drenched pelican dubbed "The Governor's Bird"

dog links: antiquarian & posthuman

Two totally disparate recent discoveries:

* The National Sporting Library in Virginia has just opened an exhibit of their canine-relate materials, Lives of Dogs Viewed Through Literature, Art and Ephemera.

* Experimental musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson has composed a 20-minute musical piece for dogs - it will debut at the Sydney Opera House on June 5 for a mixed human and canine audience. 

spares no one

Apropos my recent posts here and on Tumblr on the histories of fish and humans in the Atlantic world, today I came across a grim report from the Louisiana Coast on the ecological, economic, social disaster looming over already fragile African American oystering and shrimping communities:

Ironically, one approach to keeping the oil away could itself finish off the black fishing community here.

State officials have opened Mississippi River diversions, such as the White’s Ditch Siphon, hoping that a strong outward flow of water will keep the oil out of the bayou and marsh where it could persist for decades, and ruin the already brittle wetlands . But emptying that much fresh water into the oyster beds throws off the delicate salinity balance the bivalves need to survive.

When the White’s Ditch Siphon was installed in 1963, it destroyed most of the oyster beds owned by African Americans, said Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oysterman Association. Encalade says he had close to 1,500 acres of oyster beds before the White Ditch intrusion and now has about 200 acres. At peak, blacks owned almost 10,000 acres collectively, but now maybe 1,500, he said.

As this sadly beautiful photo-essay from ColorLines puts it: the oil spill spares no one.

the sea is history

I have a new Tumblr picture post on the monstrous, predatory fish in British artist J. M. W. Turner's famous 1840 painting The Slave Ship.  The task seems daunting and overwhelming, but I wonder if it would make sense to think the histories of Atlantic slavery and Atlantic sea life alongside each other?  The waves of transpecies disasters threatening the Gulf of Mexico, from Katrina to the BP oil spill, would seem to demand it.

Image From Greenpeace Flickr stream