Tom Stienstra at SFGate recently wrote that California can expect an early, wet winter. How do we know this? There’s a saying, “Birds never lie.” If so, the best weather forecaster in the West, the migratory sandhill crane, is predicting an early winter with plenty of rain and snow. Over the years, the timing of …
Continue reading ‘Sandhill cranes as seasonal forecasters – is this just bullshit?’ »
Here’s a counter-intuitive result from Lucija Muehlenbachs and colleagues about the effect of shale gas drilling on neighborhood property values: While shale gas development can result in rapid local economic development, negative externalities associated with the process may adversely affect the prices of nearby homes…. We find that proximity to wells increases housing values, though risks …
Continue reading ‘Shale gas, groundwater and real estate values’ »
The bird in Regent’s Park seemed goose-like enough. But too small, and with the dark and light bits in the wrong places. I grabbed my pocket guide. “Unlike much larger Canada Goose, black extends over breast and body is grey (not brown).” Ah yes, the Barnacle goose. Check. In London’s Underground, a cheery female voice …
Sometime during the mid-1970s, when I was a young teenager, Dad took us to see a Mark Rothko retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I must be cautious here in recalling the extent to which I was moved by a beginning-to-end look at the Russian-American painter’s work. “What you end up remembering,” …
Lissa first spotted a parakeet last week out by Greenwich, a flash of green knifing into trees above the garden path we were walking. It was just a glimpse followed by a fruitless search through the trees to identify the source of the squawking, followed by a visit to my Pocket Guide to the Birds …
There’s an odd little monument in Broadwick Street, a couple of blocks over from the Carnaby Street shopping district. It’s an old water pump, with the handle removed, across the street from a pub named after 19th century London physician John Snow. When Snow lived in the neighborhood, it was known as Broad Street, and …
The geography of human history comes in layers. We are often drawn to the same spots over time for the same reasons, building on what came before – often literally “on”, as in “on top of”. Or we come to the same spot because that’s where the people already are. But the historical layering of …
There’s a huge steel pipe running above the trains in the Sloane Square station on the London Underground. Depending on the historical time period you’re talking about, you could call it the River Westbourne or the Ranelagh Sewer. As Paul Talling explains: As this area developed into the desirable location it is today, the final …
Water draws me: There are no “rivers” proper in the part of Southern California where I grew up. Perhaps that’s why I’m so drawn to water. Or maybe it’s just part of the human condition? I can imagine an evolutionary benefit to being drawn to water. Whatever. Wherever I am, I end up walking to …