i (heart) odd-toed ungulates

To the Other Side of the World

It's time to get away. Away to the very farthest place I can go before the curvature of the earth would start to head me home again. I'm taking off for New Zealand. I know I will love it because I've been there before - twelve years ago. Ironically, the circumstances preceding my last trip down under had left me recovering from an exceedingly difficult period in my life, much the same as I find myself in this year (factoring in the unfortunate effect inflation has on the economics of personal experience...). In both cases, I didn't deliberately choose New Zealand over other destinations, it literally extended a personal invitation (from one NZ to another...), at just the moment I needed it, and it was then and is now a date I couldn't turn down.

Twelve years ago I filled a sketchbook on my travels, using paintings and writing to journal what was one of the most exciting adventures I'd ever taken. The visual diary that I brought home has been sitting in a drawer for all these years, but retrieving it recently and visiting with each day of that experience has already lifted me, sparked a new fire, and adjusted my perspective. Below are a few pages from that sketchbook. Above, a small brown native, whom I did not chance to see on my last trip, but will make a deliberate effort to encounter this time around. (The Kiwi bird really deserves a post of it's own, for all kinds of cool reasons... but it'll have to wait till my return...)

And to my scant but dedicated followers, I'll have much to share again in July... 

Tiny Horses by Amy Jean Porter

Amy Jean Porter's illustration drips with a coolness that I have always lamented not being able to infuse my own art with. It lives in a contemporary, popular culture that I simply don't gravitate to when I pick up a pencil. Don't get me wrong, I like my comparatively traditional style, and I've learned over the years that attempting to make art that doesn't come naturally to you is generally a very frustrating, ultimately loosing battle (skill and mastery of technique notwithstanding)... but I love Amy's work for all the things that make it so different than my own. The fact that she uses her distinct style to depict animal subjects, and is in the middle of a massive series of small drawings and paintings titled "All Species All the Time", is just the icing on the cake (and qualifies her for a mention on this very animal-centric blog). I've selected a handful of horses here from her "Tiny Horses Say What" series - a subset of the ASAT theme.

See more of Amy's really, really fun, crazy-bright, and awesome artwork at her website: www.amyjeanporter.com

Hand Numbered

If you've ever walked the comparative anatomy halls of a natural history museum, where bare skeletons of all manner of creature stand starkly side by side - the spindly assembly of a lithe African antelope next to the massive bone blocks of a 4-ton hippopotamuses - you might notice, upon closer inspection, that each and every bone in any given skeleton is identified by a neat, hand-written number. On older skeletons, this handwriting can be the graceful, faded script of a quill pen; newer acquisitions might sport a more bold, rapidograph print. However the marks were made, they serve the purpose of cataloguing each animal - and all of it's osteo-anatomy - within a given museum's vast archives. Upon donation to the institution, each animal specimen is given a unique string of digits, just like the call number on a library card - but unlike a library book with a single card inside it's cover, a single skeleton contains a few hundred bones... each of which need to be numbered, lest the pieces become separated at any time and risk mingling with other specimens.

I have always admired the elements of design and order that these specimen numbers impart on the raw surfaces of the bones they identify; and recently, to my great delight, I had the opportunity to be the mark-maker myself. On an afternoon last week, working in the department of mammalogy at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, I was tasked with inscribing the bones of a marten skeleton with it's assigned specimen acquisition ID: MCZ 64353. Trusty Rapidograph pen in hand, I made my way down each vertebrae, along each long leg bone, across each scapula and jaw, until I was left with needle-fine ribs, fragile hyoids, and bits of phalanges too delicate for any amount of ink. It was a sublimely meditative task, and simultaneously extremely thrilling.

Below, a pine marten, in the flesh and fur that it's skeleton usually wears.

Plum Island, for the Birds

Massachusetts is not for want of lovely New England coastline and beaches, though if you're a birder, one of the most sought after stretches of shore is located adjacent to the quaint northern town of Newburyport. Not to be confused with the mysteriously spooky Plum Island of Animal Disease Center fame (located on the northeastern tip of Long Island, NY), Plum Island, MA is a stunning and quite disease-free, 11-mile long barrier island, just barely separated from the mainland by the slim Parker River. It's namesake, the beach-plum bush, grows in great numbers around the island, and in the fall produce small fruits that apparently make delicious jam. Though the northern portion of the island is inhabited by seasonal and year-round residents, the southern portion is a protected wildlife refuge filled with all manner of native creatures, the most popular being winged.

Established in 1942, the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge is one of the premier bird-watching spots in the country - over 300 species have been recorded there, from ducks, gulls, and plovers, to herons, egrets, owls, and ospreys. The landscape is off limits to random foot traffic, but neat boardwalks traverse marshes and thickets, and carefully marked trails lead through dunes and grasslands. Even without binoculars, plentiful feathered activity can be spotted flitting through the vegetation, bobbing in saltwater, or gliding and hovering above. Some of the flashiest entertainers around the beach are male red-winged blackbirds - these striking birds are jet black with brilliant red shoulder patches, or epaulets, and a bordering yellow wingbar. As is common with many birds, the female red-winged blackbird is smaller in size than the male and much less vibrant in color - her feathers are a flecked mix of blackish-brown, rusty-gold, and cream.

Red-winged blackbirds are songbirds that nest in tall grasses, rushes, and cattails, where one male controls a loose territory of up to 10 females. During breeding season the showy males will exhibit proudly, often from the spindly perch of a single reed or stalk of grass - holding their wings out just enough to showcase the red epaulets, and chuffing up their chest and shoulders in what is known as the "perched display", they'll belt out a song of "oak-a-lee" and attempt to intimidate rivals. Illustrated below is a male red-wing displaying from a patch of dry marsh grass - the object of his attention, a rival male, assumed a matching stance in a nearby bush and I watched them trade threats until the distraction of a female zooming through caused them both to take off in chase. For some reason I have never been particularly enthusiastic about watching birds, though I've come to realize, through my brief but thrilling recent introduction to this hobby, that all it often takes is an ounce of patience, and the dedication of steady eyes, to open up a world of avian drama. And I am reminded of the incredible E.O. Wilson (world's most distinguished scholar of ants), who developed his passion for ants by simply getting down on the ground as a child and passing whole afternoons just watching them; following them from the anthill, tagging along on their trails back and forth for food... Wilson has always been a great proponent of taking the time to observe the nature around you - even the most ubiquitous, mundane, minute life tells a story, if we open our eyes and ears to discover it.



March through May is Piping Plover nesting season at Plum Island, and since these petit shorebirds are considered threatened, portions of the open beach, where they prefer to lay their eggs, are closed and carefully monitored. Khaki and white in coloring, and only about the size of a sparrow, Piping Plovers are busy little things, scurrying along the tide's edge on vibrant orange legs as they forage for insects, worms, and tiny crustaceans - they're speedy enough in fact that when threatened, they'll attempt to run away first, only taking flight if really necessary. Instead of weaving a nest out of vegetation, plovers create "scrapes" in the high shore areas of the beach. Following courtship, the male will scratch out a series of depressions in the sand. After choosing her favorite, the female will "decorate" it with shells and other beach debris to camouflage it, though on account of their relatively exposed real estate, plover nests are easily disturbed by predators, humans, and even storms and high tides, hence the conservation efforts to protect them.  



If you're considering a trip to Plum Island, for the birds or just a bit of splendid beach, I highly recommend a pit stop to or from at divinely convenient Bob Lobster. Best. Fried. Clams. Ever. (and then I had an ice cream cone...)