Tag Animals

Entries 25 Total

Grizzly vs. Bison

Nov 5, ’10 12:37 PM

My sister sent me this totally incredible link.

Mythic Chase

After dropping his wife off at her office, Yellowstone local Alex Wypyszinski did a little wildlife spotting.

“I thought it was a horse and carriage,” said Wypyszinski. “That was the kind of noise that I heard.”

By the time he turned around, the two fuzzy brown images were racing quickly toward him.

“I thought I was having a hallucination or something,” said Wypyszinski. “I couldn’t believe what that buffalo looked like.”

It was a bison, badly burned from an encounter with one of the numerous hot spots in Yellowstone National Park.

The sight of such an injured bison alone is rare, but what Wypyszinski saw next was once in a lifetime.

“Never, ever, ever,” said Wypyszinski. “I’ve seen plenty of bear, and more buffalo. But I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

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A Laulau Dive

Oct 17, ’10 11:36 PM

Peter and I took our weekly adventure underwater this Sunday with a delightful trip to Laulau Beach. It gets it’s name from the rough dirt road you have to bounce down to get to it, laolao being the Chamorro word meaning to shake.

The dive was beautiful. Every time I get in the water I’m surprised how warm it is. The water at Laulau is 90° F, and knee-deep for the first 25 feet or so straight out from shore. This shelf drops off into about 10 or 15 feet of water, where we splashed in and followed a well secured rope line out through some reef structures and into a great dive.

I’d love to know the name of the quarter sized matte black swimmers studded with neon sapphires or the posh red-spined coral eater whose tail looks like a brush dipped in bright yellow paint, but we saw a whole school of Naso lituratus, one of maybe three fish species I can identify and my favorite to spot. Peter spotted a large Green sea turtle (the endangered Chelonia mydas) and we got to swim along side it for a few inspiring minutes. These animals have an extraordinarily graceful attitude and style, they seem to fly effortlessly over the sea floor. Very beautiful.

This video is fairly representative of our dive, though we didn’t see a huge school of fish. Also we’re not a Japanese woman.

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Whitey the Dog

Oct 5, ’10 11:56 PM

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Trail Ride on Socrates

Mar 10, ’10 7:16 AM

McKenzie took me on a trail ride Monday night! It was great. It seems like she’s going all the time on her Appaloosa, Grace. But I’ve never been out with her before. She asked the owner of this charming Icelandic horse named Socrates if I could take him out (yes, if I wear a helmet) and had him all saddled up by the time I got out to the barn.

We didn’t end up getting very far on account of the wheelie-popping dirt bikers buzzing illegally past on off limits railroad and county property. (“When you see people on horses please just idle until they pass,” said McKenzie after we gave up) I didn’t care too much that we hardly made it past the driveway. We turned around and did a lap in the pasture instead. I loved it, thanks McKenzie!

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The First Air to Ground Radio Message

Feb 19, ’10 7:35 AM

kiddo-vaniman.jpg‘Roy, come and get this goddamn cat’

2010 marks the centenary of a number of great events, including the first air to ground radio message.

Exactly 100 years ago, a gray tabby named Kiddo became the first cat to cross the Atlantic Ocean by dirigible. Kiddo belonged to one of the crew members of American explorer Walter Wellman’s airship America. In 1910 Wellman attempted to cross the ocean, leaving from Atlantic City, New Jersey on 15 October that year. Kiddo stowed away in one of the lifeboats, and was after his discovery turned out to be as big a pain as only an angry, claustrophobic cat can be, scratching, mewing, and howling and generally bugging the heck out of everybody on board. The America carried radio equipment — the first aircraft so equipped — and apparently the historic first, in-flight radio message, to a secretary back on land, read: ‘Roy, come and get this goddamn cat’

More information on this momentous event is here. Via BoingBoing.

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