It turned out to be David Wells. He had fallen out of an Uber when he was reaching for another beer and landed on my lawn.
I managed to get him on his feet. He circled around and then moved off down the street. He was scheduled to sign autographs in a Comic book store on Merrick Road.
My good deed for the day.
I went out Tuesday to get the leaf pictures I promised Sixty Grit. Right in the middle of the street was what I'm pretty sure was a baby blue jay, flopping around and squawking. I couldn't tell whether he had an injured leg or wing, or just couldn't fly yet. I picked him up and put him in the undergrowth below one of our trees.
When I turned around I saw that he had a sibling who had been sitting on a recycling bin and watching us the whole time. This one could fly, though reluctantly and clumsily. He was still there when I came back from my walk in the little park.
I went out later to check up, and found one perched on a low branch of that same tree.
I hope it was the one I found in the street, as that might mean both of them are OK. I wonder why the parents weren't around; I should have been getting divebombed, or at least screamed at. Maybe they figured it was time the little nuisances got a job and a place to live, and kicked them out.
Dr Chris Hewson, a senior research ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, told BBC News that infrasound was a plausible explanation.
He pointed out that several birds, including falcons, are thought to use infrasound to help them navigate.
"And you can see from the weather data that there doesn't appear to be any alternative cue that they could be picking up on," he said.
The new study is the first time that migratory birds have been seen taking such dramatic evasive action.
"We know that birds can alter their route to avoid things during regular migration," Dr Streby explained. "But it hadn't been shown until our study that they would leave once the migration is over, and they'd established their breeding territory, to escape severe weather."
"Being smaller and lighter in the land of giants, with rapidly evolving anatomical adaptations, provided these bird ancestors with new ecological opportunities, such as the ability to climb trees, glide and fly.
"Ultimately, this evolutionary flexibility helped birds survive the deadly meteorite impact which killed off all their dinosaurian cousins."
Teaching birds to sing "lessons properly composed within the faculty and compass of each bird," was a popular and lucrative hobby in the eighteenth century. The instruments used were the bird-flageolet and the recorder and other small home-made pipes.Here is are a few examples of songs played on the recorder by Sarah Angliss. (Play button in top bar.)
When it comes to death by solar farm, birds typically die in one of two ways. In the first, the glimmering sheer of solar panels might trick birds into thinking they are actually part of a body of water. And so the birds, especially waterfowl in this scenario, dive towards the panels, looking for moisture and food, only to find themselves, bones broken, dying in the middle of the arid California sand.
Lex Berko MotherboardBlunt force trauma aside, others feel the wrath of the harnessed sunlight. At the right (or really, wrong) angle, the potent radiation bouncing off solar mirror’s are enough to burn a bird’s fragile wings, abruptly sending the creature downward towards the ground and impending death. They’re like tragic avian Icaruses, except without an easily digestible moral lesson behind their fatal crashes.
