Belugas for Yougas

What is it about Beluga Whales? Ghostly, smiling, bulbous yet supple. The staple of any decent tourist-draw aquarium. Check out this Beluga from the Mystic Aquarium, enjoying a soft rendition of mariachi music from Mariachi Connecticut (that's right, Mariachi Connecticut--stranger things have happened.)



We visit the Mystic Aquarium most every year. I'm going to find this Beluga and introduce myself because I like mariachi music too.


This Beluga is catching bubbles in his mouth. Awwww. He must be bored shitless in that tank.




Hear the Belugas sing! This is another aural universe, for sure.

The Way We Get By - Trailer

The Way We Get By is the story of troop greeters in Bangor, Maine, who meet the troops on their way to and from Iraq.

Guler Ice Cave, Washington

Today Laurie, Keith and I took a road trip to the Guler Ice Cave near Trout Lake, Washington. Driving along the Columbia River Gorge with some short stops to Starvation Creek, Horsetail and Multnomah Falls, we crossed this crazy-narrow bridge to the Washington side to the National Forest and proceeded to drive along some very bucolic landscape, featuring barns, fields, meadows and llama farms.

Our ice-cave equipment sucked. None of us had proper shoes and we were sliding all over the giant lava-boulders that line the 680-foot long cave. A lot of melting ice is creating some weird see-through puddles that are actually a walkable solid surface but they look like liquid puddles. Some of the icicles are curling from the ceiling, "like dreadlocks," said Laurie, but most look like your standard (if gigantic) pointy icicle. Many from the floor surface are rounded like sparkly alien creatures.

Our flashlights and lanterns were dim at best but we really felt like we were having an adventure, down in the ice cave there. I took some photos with my little camera and I'll see if anything comes out when I get the film developed. That's right: I use film and a scanner. Wanna fight about it?

Here's a video from Wend Magazine, shot in February of this year, when it was even icier. We would have died if we had attempted this. Thanks for risking your safety for the sake of video, Wend.

Jon Stewart Hits Another Fish in a Barrel

Thank you Jon Stewart for being right on target. I'm so SICK of hearing about the Swine Flu and how it's going to wipe out the entire human race. Should we wash our hands and stay in if we get the flu?--yes, as always. Should the media add to our depression, woe and sense of doom with this story? I'll let Stewart answer that one.

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Snoutbreak '09 - The Last 100 Days
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Chapman School Chimney Swifts

Laurie's back, visiting Portland and she found out about the Chapman School Chimney Swifts before I did. Also known as Vaux's Swifts, every September, thousands of these tiny, frantically flying birds (they sleep, eat and mate in flight) roost in the school chimney as the sun goes down. This creates a swirling vortex of birds for a reverse "genie in a bottle" effect.

We, along with hundreds of picnicking Portlanders, sat up on the school hillside and watched nature adapt before our eyes. With the lack of worldwide hollow trees to safely nest-build in, the birds have been using chimneys instead. They're considered a nuisance in some parts of the world, requiring an exterminator in order for people and businesses to use their heat source without the scent of 40,000 smoked birds.

Not in Portland though! The kids at Chapman School endured many years of chilly Autumns before raising $75,000 to purchase an alternate heating system. Now the chimney is, as they say, for the birds. Here's my tiny camera-phone's birds' eye view.



And a very cool video of the Swifts turning in for the night by jgamge.


The Audubon Society of Portland is having a Swift Watch Migration walk with kids' activities and music by The Chapman Swifts band on Sept. 20th.

And the documentary, "On The Wing," will be shown at Cinema 21 in Portland for one night as a benefit for the Audubon Society, Thursday, October 2nd. The trailer has some pretty shots of the city, as well as the birds.

California is for Duck Lovers

For some reason I kept discovering strange ducks on this trip to California. Who can explain the profusion of odd waterfowl everywhere I turned? I was able to capture the phenomena with today's digital technology. Otherwise I'd have to sketch these things like John James Audubon and that's too much of a commitment for me. Here's some instant odd duck gratification.

At Pixieland Amusement Park in Concord I found this duck with a mohawk, waddling around, trying to avoid some Canadian Geese bullies. With Canadian Geese, you can see where the term "pecking order" comes from. I don't know if this duck is considered cool or weird by the rest of his duck brethren. He did have a slight air of insecurity about him.

Today at Stowe Lake in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, we found this duck lurking about, waiting for us to throw some popcorn his way. He wasn't actually lurking. He was just hanging out in the shade, being chill. But what a strange-looking fellow! I was describing his looks to our five-year-old friend Alex. "Alex," I said. "This duck is like a mixture of a turkey, a vulture and a duck." Alex took a look and said, "And a COW."
So true! Here's a close-up of his bovine-like markings:
As we walked around the lake, we spotted this lovely specimen, who kind of looks like the spawn of a duck and a seagull. Could she be posing with her parents in this photo? Here's a nice comparison between a regular-looking brown duck and this graceful little creature.
Paddle-boats make you think duck-like thoughts as you slowly make your way across the water.
We're heading back home now. I'm very sorry not to have seen some of my California friends. It's difficult to drive around and plan something for each day. Too much distance between people, and we needed some down time and time with the family. We'll be back...

Good Deal - The Salvation Army

This month, entire regions of the Earth are cracking up in devastating ways. If you want to respond with a cash (or other) donation, my friend Tuckers recommends The Salvation Army as your recipient. They have a very good record of using monetary donations well, with low administrative overhead.

Donate to The Salvation Army.

Phil Keaggy - Salvation Army Band

The Eruption of Mount St. Helens: IMAX

Moving near the Cascade Mountain Range is the best thing we ever could have done for our five-year-old. What small boy doesnt want to live near enough to a volcano to maybe see it blow, but not get injured in the process? Due to Jackson's enthusiasm for everything on earth, we're seriously hot for Mt. St. Helens: its flat table-top, its ever-active crator-building lava dome, its own VolcanoCam, its bouts of steam issuances (a good-sized plume rose above the mountain two weeks ago when we were visiting the Silver Lake Visitor Center--at first we told ourselves it was a cloud--silly us).

We recently watched The Eruption of Mount St. Helens , which was released as a 70mm IMAX film, using footage from rescue helicopters as the mountain spewed forth in 1980. Some of the footage is pretty astounding, although Amazon shoppers were underwhelmed. "It is obviously not made from original 70mm film stock," fumes one reviewer, to whom I say: let's see YOU rescue 198 people from an active volcano while lugging a 70mm film camera in your rescue copter. Another reviewer wrote, "Did anyone else notice the rotary blades of the helicopter were visible in most of the footage?" Again, I can only state emphatically that the rotary blades of a rescue copter help keep it up in the air while its pilots are rescuing people.

Of course, I can't make light of this situation. Jackson reminds us almost daily that 57 people died from the explosion and subsequent ash fall. Today he mentioned that a hundred and million people were rescued. It seems so to him. He's in love with all the snow-covered mountains around us, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, but Mt. St. Helens has a hold on him almost as intense as the side-loader garbage trucks he follows weekly around here.

As a documentary, the film kind of sucks--no scientific background; no first-hand accounts; somnolent narration; but the footage is pretty engrossing. I saved way too many screen caps of the big explosion and can only think of limited ways to use them. Perhaps in a postcard format. This mountain is still an active volcano and is a fascinating reminder of how tiny and helpless we are in the face of hot magma.

Mt. St. Helens, pre-eruption.
Then on May 18th, 1980: Ka-blooey.
Pristine Spirit Lake, at the foot of the mountain, pre-eruption.
And after--a post-apocalyptic landscape.
The initial explosion issued from a "bulge" on the north side of the mountain, which had been growing for several days following weeks of measurable earthquakes. The lateral explosion killed 57 people, wiped out countless elk, birds and other wildlife, destroyed miles of old-growth forests, and sent tons of gray ash 12 miles into the air, which then rained down all over Washington, Idaho and Montana.







Puckish Northwest humor (coated in ash).
Inside the new mile-wide crater, a fresh lava dome was forming.

But it blew up. More eruptions followed for the next six years.
The film has been updated with footage from ten years after the eruption but it's outdated now. Plants and animals are back at Mt. St. Helens. There are three visitor centers where you can view the mountain and its ever-growing lava dome within the crator.

To see what happens when a volcano implodes, here's a film still of Southern Oregon's Crater Lake. Several thousand years ago Mt. Mazama sank into the ground to a depth of 1,943 feet and formed the deepest lake in the U.S. Wizard Island, shown here, is a lava dome that later formed in the lake and all that appears to be left of Mt. Mazama (at least to our eyes).


Be sure to visit Volcano World.

Sad Tasmanian Devil News

The Tasmanian Devil is my favorite carnivorous marsupial. It only lives in Tasmania, making it one of those almost mythical beasts that you read about, rather than encounter. (Yes, it's a character in Bugs Bunny cartoons as well.) I read today that the stumpy-legged, barky creatures are rapidly being wiped out by mysterious facial tumors that keep them from eating. They starve to death and what makes it impossible to treat is that the cancers appear to be transmitted from devil to devil through bites. But the disease is not viral in nature--it's a mystery. Now scientists are reporting that the devils have very high concentrations of carcinogenic flame retardent chemicals in their fatty tissues. These are the same chemcials (PBDEs) that are causing a world-wide freak-out because they reside in us as well and they're in practically everything we deal with throughout the day: furniture, rugs, computers, walls, etc. If creatures who only live in Tasmania are saturated with this stuff, what does that mean for our health and the health of our children? In other words, what price flame retardation?

photo source: Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park
More information: Where Light Meets Dark