The Nature of Things

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Carolina Wrens are tiny birds with a huge repertoire of songs. They are brilliant singers and mated pairs sing back and forth to each other in a kind of call and response. They are welcome visitors to my feeders and I enjoy listening to their serenades whenever I am in the garden. *~*~*~* Four former Environmental Protection Agency heads - three Republicans and one Democrat - in testimony to Congress this week excoriated the present administration for its neglect of its core duties. They bemoaned the exodus of longtime EPA employees and the sinking morale of career staffers and expressed concern that five decades of environmental progress are at risk because of the attitude and approach of the current administration.   *~*~*~* Wildfire season in Canada, which is as destructive as in the United States, is off to a ferocious start . Eighty-seven fires were burning in seven provinces and two territories Monday, forcing...

Third in Ali Smith's remarkable seasonal series of novels comes Spring . All three of the books have been timely, the action in them occurring almost in the time frame in which we read them. The action here is mostly in October 2018. Considering the time it takes to write a book - the drafting, the revision, the editing, and finally the publication - how does she manage to do that? The books are very much of this political era, the post-Brexit vote in the UK and the post-2016 presidential election in the US, and this book deals cogently and in white-hot passion with the monstrous treatment of immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers. The opening line of Spring is, "Now what we don't want is facts" and thus Smith sums up very succinctly the governing strategy of the moment. Facts are not really facts but are whatever you can get people to believe. Truth is malleable and waiting to be shaped by the master propagandists. This is the background for the stories she tells ...

I have long enjoyed the BBC television adaptation of Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope mysteries as well as the other television series based on her books, Shetland . The actor who plays Vera, Brenda Blethyn, is absolutely perfect in the role, as is the man who plays her sergeant, Joe. Now that I've finally gotten around to reading the first book in the Vera series, I imagined those two actors speaking their lines as I read them. It certainly enhanced my enjoyment of the book. Not that my enjoyment especially needed enhancing. I thought the book was wonderful in its plotting and in the characters that were introduced along the way. I can't think of a single thing that I would change about it. All of the main characters in the story are women. We first meet Bella Furness, a middle-aged wife caring for her invalid husband. She walks out of her house one day and is next seen by Rachael Lambert who arrives in the area to lead an environmental study. When Rachael arrives at the cottage...

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote this poem in 1819-20. It was published in 1820. He uses the cloud as a metaphor for the unending cycle of Nature. It's a theme that was inherent in several of his poems. The imagery of transformation or metamorphosis in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth was a subject which fascinated him and one that he strove to express through his poetry. His final stanza here really sums up all of that: " I change, but I cannot die." The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,  From the seas and the streams;  I bear light shade for the leaves when laid  In their noonday dreams.  From my wings are shaken the dews that waken  The sweet buds every one,  When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,  As she dances about the sun.  I wield the flail of the lashing hail,  And whiten the green plains under,  And then again I dissolve it in rain,  And laugh as I pass in thunder.  I ...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Mississippi Kite image from allaboutbirds.com. The lovely and graceful Mississippi Kites are back in my neighborhood this week. I've seen them circling over my backyard chasing flying insects late in the afternoon on several occasions. They are always a welcome sight. *~*~*~* It's not even true summer yet but already India is suffering through one of its worst heat waves. Temperatures have topped 120 degrees (49 Celsius) in areas. People have stopped going outside in the heat. Authorities have taken to hosing down the baking streets. If this is June, what will July and August be like? Meanwhile, our high temperature today is predicted to be 94 and 98 tomorrow. *~*~*~* The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared an "unusual mortality event" in the wake of 70 dead gray whales having washed up along the western coast from California to Alaska this year. They have launched an investiga...

The Black Ascot was a famous horse race that took place in 1910 in honor of the recently deceased King Edward VII. Everyone wore black to the race to show their mourning for the beloved king. After the race, there was a notorious murder of one of the attendees, a murder that was never solved. Or at least the suspect was never apprehended. The suspect was one Alan Barrington, a wealthy man who had the means to give the police the slip. He disappeared, apparently having left the country, and never a trace was found.  Years later, in 1921, England and Europe had suffered through a great war that made news of one lone murder pale in comparison. Inspector Ian Rutledge, one of those who suffered in the war, had returned to his pre-war job with Scotland Yard, and he received a tip from a former convict that Alan Barrington had been seen in England again. His tip was credible enough that Rutledge felt a responsibility to report it to his superior. Subsequently, he began a quiet review of t...

Claudia Leonardo is a student of English Literature at the university in Venice where Paolo Brunetti teaches. In class, Claudia is a very quiet young woman, seldom speaking, but the work that she presents to Professor Brunetti is exemplary. She shows an extraordinary understanding of the material and a particular admiration for Paolo's own literary hero, Henry James.  Paolo surmises that anyone with such an appreciation of James must be extremely intelligent.  Thus, when Claudia lingers after class one day and asks to speak with Paolo, she is prepared to give her her full attention.  Claudia is aware that Paolo is married to a policeman, Commissario Guido Brunetti, and she wants her to ask her husband a question. She wants to know whether there is a process for obtaining a pardon for a long-dead individual who was convicted of a crime, perhaps unjustly. Paolo answers that she doesn't think her husband can answer the question without more information about what the crime w...