Before the Fall by Noah Hawley: A review

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Noah Hawley. Now, why did that name seem so familiar? Google had the answer, of course. He's the writer/producer/showrunner of the wonderful FX series, Fargo, which I have thoroughly enjoyed now for two seasons. Who knew that he was also a novelist?

Well, maybe you did, but I didn't.

Before the Fall is, apparently, his fifth book and it is a winner, maybe even one of those summer reading blockbusters that happen every so often. It has a compelling plot, interesting characters, and is the essence of a page-turning thriller.

The story is this: One August night in 2015, a private plane takes off from Martha's Vineyard, carrying eleven people; the head of a major cable news network (obviously based on Fox News) and his wife, daughter and young son; his friend, a soon-to-be indicted business executive/dirty money launderer and his wife; the "body man" security guard of the TV executive's family; the pilot, co-pilot, and a flight attendant; and a last minute addition to the passenger list, a failed middle-aged painter named Scott Burroughs who may now actually be on the brink of success and fame. Only eighteen minutes into its flight, the plane, which had been serviced and checked only the day before, crashes into the Atlantic.

In the dark sea, one passenger surfaces among flames and wreckage. Scott Burroughs has survived the initial disaster, but for how long? How far is he from shore and which way is that? Can he swim for it or will he die of hypothermia? He tries to orient himself.

Then, among the debris, he hears a child crying. He tries to locate the direction of the sound and swims toward it and finds the only other survivor - the four-year-old son of the television executive and his wife.

Scott takes the boy onto his back. At some point, the clouds clear enough for him to see the stars and he is able to determine the direction of the shore and he starts to swim toward it, even though one of his shoulders is dislocated.

We learn that bodies of water have played large roles in Scott's life. His beloved sister drowned in the cold waters of Lake Michigan. He remembers that when he was a boy, one of his heroes was the bodybuilder Jack LaLanne, and that he had once watched on television as LaLanne pulled a boat through the waters from Acatraz to the California shore. After that, he was inspired to become a long distance swimmer himself, and although for many years he had not practiced those skills, recently, he has tried to get back into shape and again become a swimmer. He calls on that muscle memory as he struggles to pull himself and the child to shore.

On one level, this book is about that crash and the struggle to survive, but it quickly moves into larger issues that seem to be an inevitable part of modern catastrophes as seen through the lens of the 24/7 cable news media's way of covering such events; namely sensationalizing the situation, drawing false conclusions, and hounding the victims. Thus, Scott Burroughs, initially hailed as a hero for his actions, is soon being demonized by a Bill O'Reilly type on the cable news network of the deceased TV executive as a philanderer who was probably having an affair with the executive's wife and who may have been responsible for the plane's crash. Or maybe he was a terrorist, radicalized by ISIS. We speculate, you decide.

Things begin to spiral out of control as investigators continue to try to meticulously piece together the truth of what happened and to recover the bodies, but, of course, cable news has already created its "truth" and has no patience to wait for the facts.

The construction of this story, as we slowly get the backstories of all of the passengers and crew and the chief investigator of the crash, builds the suspense brilliantly. It certainly made me eager to turn the page to see what happened next and made it very hard for me to put the book down.

The only negative thing that I have to say about the book is that the ending was maybe a little too pat and not entirely satisfactory, although it is certainly an ending that I think most of us, probably including the author, would wish for a cable news personality whose game is making a blood sport of other people's tragedies. But that is a very minor quibble. If you are looking for a fast-paced summer read that might also make you think about our modern society, this just might be your cup of tea.


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This week in birds - #321

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

One of the prettiest of backyard birds, in my opinion, is the softly colored female Northern Cardinal, seen here politely waiting her turn at the feeder.

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Hurricanes are known for many things, mostly destructive, and, happening as they mostly do during the fall migration season, they can seriously upset a bird's travel plans. While it may be distressing to the birds, it is often a boon to birders who may get to see birds that they had not seen before. Florence, for example, recently deposited a Trinidade Petrel in the Raleigh area in North Carolina. 

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The annual "Winter Finch Forecast" is out and things are looking very promising for those of us in the lower parts of the continent to get visits from several irruptive species this winter. The cone and birch seed crops have been poor in much of Canada this year which should send many of the finches south to look for food.

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The flooding from Hurricane Florence has surged into coal ash ponds and lagoons of pig waste spreading all that toxic waste over the landscape, potentially polluting water supplies and increasing the misery of the victims of the storm. 

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The Bradford pear was produced by botanists and was introduced in the 1950s as an attractive landscape tree for suburban neighborhoods. As so often happens in these stories, it didn't stay where it was put. Its seeds were spread far and wide and it has become a pernicious invasive weed in many areas. Truly, it is not nice - or wise - to mess with Mother Nature.

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Though not widely known, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, signed into law in 1964 with the goal of protecting natural areas and cultural resources and increasing recreational opportunities, has benefited virtually every county in the United States during its existence. In its more than 50-year history, the fund has helped 42,000 projects across the country, ranging from wilderness areas and historic battlefields to local tennis courts and trails. And now it is running out of money. If legislators fail to reauthorize the program before September 30, the fund will immediately run dry and will no longer be able to dole out money, which in recent years has averaged about $450 million annually, a significant boost to the economy of many communities.

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Scientists have identified what, to this point at least, is the oldest known animal life form which existed at least 20 million years before the explosion of life during the Cambrian period. The fossil is 558 million years old and is a simple oval-shaped member of a group of organisms called Ediacarans.

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The first ever national bird count using weather radar indicates that about 4 billion birds make their way south from Canada across the continent in the fall, while up to 4.7 billion leave the U.S. for Mexico and points farther south. In the spring, 2.6 billion return across the border into Canada, while about 3.5 billion cross the southern border into the United States.

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Some of the places in our public lands, parks and national monuments, are sacred to Native American tribes and are culturally, spiritually, and economically vital to those tribes. Visitors to those areas need to remember and respect that.

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New Mexico and California are suing the federal government to try to stop its plan to roll back regulations that forced energy companies to capture methane, a key contributor to climate change that is released in huge amounts during drilling.

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Most of the smuggling of ivory out of Africa is handled by three cartels, as discovered by research on the animals' DNA using their poop and their tusks.

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Like so many other species, nearly half of all freshwater turtles and tortoises are at risk of extinction. The usual culprits are to blame: habitat loss, illegal pet trade, and consumption for food and traditional medicine.

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Fragmentation of their habitats is a problem for many birds. One way to address at least one aspect of the problem is to plant more trees in pastures to create more acceptable habitat for forest birds.

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A beach in Greece has been covered in spiders' webs at least 300 meters long. It is the mating season of these spiders of the genus Tetragnatha and the interconnecting webs allow them to party, mate, reproduce, and provide for the new generation. If you are an arachnophobe, this beach will probably not be on your vacation plans for the next few weeks.

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A joint study by universities in the U.K. has revealed that moths may play a much bigger role as plant pollinators than was previously known.

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An organization called SavingSpecies is leading a reforestation effort high in the Andes in Colombia which it is hoped will protect one of the world's most renowned biological hotspots. The Western Andes cover about three percent of the planet's land area but they are home to about 20 percent of all known species, among them many species of those flying jewels of the bird world, the hummingbirds.  

That was the week that was

What a week! So much news made and, for once, not all of it was bad.

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I can't let the week pass without adding my voice in praise of Sen. Wendy Davis of Texas, as well as Texas Democrats and all the Texas women (and men) who showed up in Austin this week to support efforts to kill the Republicans' attempt to further strip women's rights. It was a magnificent effort and is not at all diminished by the fact that Rick Perry immediately called a second special session of the state legislature to consider nothing but the draconian abortion bills. The legislature will have thirty days to pass the bills and it is likely the Democrats will not be able to stop them this time, although they will try. Republicans are determined to do the tea party's bidding on this, in spite of the fact that these restrictions on abortion are blatantly unconstitutional by any reading of Roe v. Wade and all the challenges to it and subsequent court decisions over the years. And who knows? With the personnel that are currently on the Supreme Court, it is entirely possible that they will overturn Roe v. Wade and make all of this legal.

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In an ironic confluence of the week's news, the Supreme Court's egregious decision on the Voting Rights Act relates directly to the story of Wendy Davis and Texas Democrats, because now the Republicans are free to implement their voter suppression laws that the Justice Department had refused to allow to go forward and they gleefully began to do so the day after the court's decision. They are free to gerrymander to their heart's content and they will do their best to ensure that Wendy Davis and other pesky Democrats cannot be reelected. Moreover, the Voter ID law which was clearly (to anybody not named John Roberts) designed to restrict the ability of black and brown people in Texas to vote and to ensure the continuation of redneck white rule in the state, regardless of what the population looks like, now goes into effect.

These are people who do not care about democracy. They are only concerned with holding onto their power, the state and its people's welfare be damned!

It's a popular thing in some circles of Texas Republicanism to say that we need another revolution. They may be on to something. Yes, we need to revolt and throw these Stone Age bastards out!

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While it doesn't qualify as earth-shaking news, I went to the movies yesterday. We searched around for something that we might enjoy seeing and found the pickings slim. We finally settled on Star Trek Into Darkness. 

As one of the original fans of the original television series back in the Dark Ages when it began, my first reaction to the new movie was, "Boy, was that loud!"

My second reaction was that special effects have come a long, long way since that original series, and that's not necessarily a good thing. This movie was essentially all special effects. Not five minutes went by without something exploding or someone doing something humanly impossible, even in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth century.

Of the acting, probably the less said the better. Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Khan, was suitably malevolent and invincible. I liked Karl Urban as Bones, but then I like Karl Urban as most characters he plays. Simon Pegg as Scotty was pretty entertaining. As for the rest of those guys - well, Chris Pine as Kirk chewed up the scenery in a way that even William Shatner never would have dared. He out-Shatnered Shatner. Zachary Quinto as Spock is no Leonard Nimoy, but then, who is?

The movie was two hours and five minutes long. It seemed about five hours. Its main effect on me was to make me want to go back and watch Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan again.

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President Obama made a major speech about climate change this week and, given the abundance of other stories in the news, it was almost completely ignored by the news media. Actually, that may be a good thing. At least it may keep the science deniers from having a platform on which to spout their nonsense.

President Obama has wisely chosen to take steps that he can do without our dysfunctional Congress's approval or participation, and that offers hope for those of us who have been gnashing our teeth over the inaction on this issue for years that something may actually get done this time, something that will finally begin to inhibit the spewing of greenhouse gases into our fragile atmosphere.

When future historians look back on 2013, this might actually turn out to be the most consequential story of the year.

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We learned this week that the IRS "scandal" was manufactured, which, frankly didn't surprise me in the least. The inspector general only reported on the targeting of conservative organizations because that is all Darrell Issa and the Republican leadership asked him to do and he was bound by those parameters. In fact, the IRS had targeted probably more liberal and progressive organizations for extra scrutiny. They did this, essentially, because they were trying to enforce a difficult law, which is made difficult by the fact that the agency has apparently misinterpreted it over the years.

Will Issa and his hooligans drop their "investigation" of the IRS now that their scheme has been exposed? Who knows? But they always have Benghazi, another manufactured "scandal" to fall back on.

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Nelson Mandela. Invictus.

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June 27 was our thirty-eighth wedding anniversary. It's been a short thirty-eight years.

On Wednesday night, as a kind of pre-anniversary gift, our sweet son-in-law treated the whole family to tickets to the Astros game. It was the first game I had attended this year and one of the few of their games that I've been able to see. Due to a massive cock-up by the team's business management, the games are not on most people's televisions this year, including mine. This is a major irritant to me, since, in most years, I watch every game on TV, unless I happen to be at the ball park.

Anyway, back to Wednesday's game. It was a gross mismatch on paper.

The Astros played their old foes from the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals entered the game with the best record in the National League and having squashed the Astros like an annoying bug, 13-5, the night before. The Astros had the worst record in the American League. So, yes, a mismatch on paper.

But they don't play the games on paper!

THE ASTROS WON!!! 

It didn't look promising at first. After two pitches the Astros were down 2-0. But the pitcher maintained his composure and got the side out without further damage.

Meantime, Astros hitters were having no luck. Through three innings, they had no hits. But then came the fourth. Jose Altuve (You gotta love that little guy!) broke up the no-hitter with a single, and before the inning was over, it was the St. Louis pitcher who had lost his composure and the underdog Astros were up 4-2.

The Cards scored one more run but the Astros held on and won it, 4-3.

It was a great evening for this Astros fan. Maybe I brought them luck. Maybe I should attend more games!    

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen: A review

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since the mid 1970s, we have not lacked for literary and film retellings and interpretations of the Vietnam War. But all of these have been told almost exclusively from an American perspective. Although the war was fought in their country, decimated their land, and killed untold numbers of their people, we have not had the Vietnamese viewpoint of events. Viet Thanh Nguyen, with his first published novel, remedies that glaring lack for us.

Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American. Born in Vietnam, he and his family were among the boat people who escaped following the fall of Saigon and the overrunning of the South by the North Vietnamese. He was raised in the United States and educated here, so he has a unique perspective of the war and its aftermath. With this novel, he has finally given voice to the previously voiceless Vietnamese people who endured the horror of the war.

The novel is written as a confession. Our narrator, whose name we never learn, is writing his account of events for the "commissar" of the Vietnamese prison/reeducation center where he is being held. We soon learn that understanding duality is key to understanding the nature of the protagonist. He is only half Vietnamese - his mother was a teenage girl who was seduced by a French Catholic priest. He was raised by his mother alone and he loves her unconditionally. She is his hero. He hates his father who never took any part in his raising, nor did he acknowledge his son. At the time that we meet him, however, both parents are already dead.

Not only is he dual in his origins, he is also balancing between two worlds, two political ideologies. He is an aide to a South Vietnamese general (also unnamed) who fought against the Communists, but, as he tells us in his opening lines, "I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook,  man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds,...able to see any issue from both sides."

He is an undercover agent for the Communists. His handler is a childhood friend named Man. Our narrator is blood brothers with Man and another childhood friend, Bon. Bon is a "genuine patriot" of the South and is an assassin for the C.I.A.; Man is the true-believer Communist; the narrator is the man in the middle.

The action of the novel begins in the chaotic and terror-filled days of the fall of Saigon. The narrator wants to stay and take his place in a reunified Vietnam but he is ordered by Man to go with the general as he flees to America and to keep an eye on him there. Working through the C.I.A., the narrator manages to bribe the appropriate people to facilitate an air evacuation of the general and his extended family, as well as Bon and his wife and child and himself. As they flee, they are under fire from the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese and Bon's wife and child are killed before the plane takes off. The others make good their escape, first to the Philippines and later to California.

In Los Angeles, the narrator continues his spying and continues reporting to Man through an intermediary in Paris. He lands a clerical job with one of his former professors (he had been sent to attend college in California years earlier), and he engages in an affair with an older Japanese-American woman. He continues to observe and report on the activities of the local Vietnamese refugees, and he is able to alert Man when the general begins plans for a reinvasion of Vietnam through Thailand.

As the ragtag army comprised of former South Vietnamese soldiers who are armed and funded by Americans makes plans for its return, Man orders the narrator to stay in the United States and continue reporting, but Bon is going with the army and the narrator feels that he must accompany his blood brother to try to keep him safe. He disobeys Man's directive to his great regret.

In the last chapters of the book, we see the narrator, Bon, and the group they are with captured and imprisoned. The narrator must now endure the harsh interrogation techniques that he was taught by the Communists when he first joined their crusade. These chapters are dark indeed and were very difficult for me to read. They are the main reason that I give the book four stars instead of five. Readers with stronger stomachs might well give it five, for it is a remarkable book. It is a valuable insight into the Vietnamese view of that awful war that so consumed us, particularly people of my generation, in the 1960s and 1970s.


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Random Friday thoughts

I confess I have not closely followed the Baylor sex crimes scandal and its aftermath which resulted in the demotion of Kenneth Starr and the firing of their football coach this week. Another instance of privileged college athletes being allowed to rape and assault women without suffering consequences, in fact being protected by the powers that be at their universities? Ho hum. Such things only happen on days ending in y. To afford each such felony the outrage which it deserves would mean that I am in a constant state of outrage. My sincere apologies to the innocent victims of these crimes but I simply can't live my life like that.

Still, even though I've followed the story only tangentially, like many others in Texas - and, I suspect, elsewhere - I was surprised when Baylor fired its winning football coach this week, for, contrary to what you may have heard, evangelistic Christianity is not the number one religion in Texas; football is. To have one of that religion's successful and honored priests ousted is almost unheard of. Perhaps Baylor's board finally remembered that it is supposed to be a "Christian" university and that maybe, just maybe, that should come before the mindless worship of football.

And then there is Kenneth Starr, their former president/chancellor now "demoted" to chancellor, who did nothing about the crimes that were occurring right under his patrician nose. If you are old enough, you will certainly remember Kenneth Starr from the '90s and his Inspector Javert-like pursuit of President Bill Clinton. Just a few days before the excrement hit the fan this week, there was a story in The New York Times about how, now, all that "unpleasantness" is forgotten and Starr has only praise for Clinton. And if you believe the timing of that story was a coincidence, then you are just too naive for our modern culture.

So Clinton engaged in consensual sex with someone outside his marriage. Starr ignored reports of brutal sexual assaults on his campus and offered no support to the victims. But it's all good because now he's been "demoted." Too bad he couldn't be impeached.

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Hodor.

Yes, you can now have Hodor "hold the door" for you. All you have to do is purchase one of these Hodor doorstops. Isn't entrepreneurism wonderful?

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Dahlia Lithwick is one of the reasons I go to the Slate website every day. She writes mostly about the Supreme Court, but occasionally she covers more political subjects as well. She is unabashedly liberal and this week she took her fellow liberals to task for some of their behaviors in the current presidential campaign. Her clear-eyed analysis is worth reading.

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And one of the reasons I watch television is see Samantha Bee's take on the world. I really wish she were hosting one of the four-nights-a-week Comedy Central fake news shows, preferably "The Daily Show," but I'm just grateful that at least we get to see her once a week on TBS.

You haven't seen her show "Full Frontal" you say? Well, here's a taste - last Monday's episode.



(Update May 28: Sorry, the video has now been taken down. You'll just have to take my word for it: it's a good show!)

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Rain, rain, give me a break!

It's been an inordinately rainy spring here - roads flooded and closed, many homes flooded, lives lost. At our house, the inconveniences have been much more minor but still annoying.

Last month, around April 15, we got more than 14 inches of rain over a few days. We continued to get regular showers, some heavy, since then. And now Mother Nature is at it again. We got at least seven inches overnight and the monsoon continues. My poor garden!

The garden had just begun to recover from its April drenching when this new round of floods started. When it dries out a bit, I'm going to have to bring in the big guns to help with the weeding. Those weeds are going to be out of control.

I did manage to hobble out to the garden (strained hamstring, which is a whole 'nother story I won't bore you with) one day this week and took a couple of pictures before the new rains came. I'll leave you with those.

Another new daylily has started blooming.

The feverfew in the herb garden has been going crazy with blooms this spring.

In the past, my Justicia 'Orange Flame' has flowered mostly in the fall, but it got an early start this year. It can flower throughout the year.

You can see how it got the name 'Orange Flame.'

Happy Memorial Day weekend and if you are in the Houston area, try to stay dry!

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley: A review

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alan Bradley's eleven-year-old (almost twelve, as she constantly reminds us) budding chemist/detective, Flavia de Luce, is a charming creation in one of the most innovative of recent cozy mystery series. In the sixth entry of the series, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, Flavia is still charming, but the plot seems a bit contrived and strained, and by halfway through the book, I just wanted to get it over with.  Overall, I still rather enjoyed it - if I could give it two-and-a-half stars, I would, but since I can't, I'll opt for the more generous three stars - but it definitely was not one of my favorites.

There are two related mysteries for Flavia to solve this time. First, who pushed the man under the wheels of the moving train in the English village of Bishop's Lacey? Or was he pushed? Did he simply stumble and fall?

Second, the reason that all the village had turned out at the train station to meet the train was that Flavia's mother was coming home on it.

Actually, Flavia's mother's body was being sent home on it. Flavia's mother had died in a fall in the Himalayas ten years earlier and her body had just recently been found. The question now is, was her fall an accident or was she pushed?

It becomes evident that the sainted Harriet, Flavia's mother, was a spy for England and that she was on a mission at the time that she died. It seems very likely that her death was no accident, but how will Flavia ever prove that or find the person responsible for her death?

A few minutes before the death of the man at the railway station, he had whispered a cryptic message into Flavia's ear. Winston Churchill is also at the train station and he, too, speaks to Flavia using words that make no sense at the time. Later, when she finds some old film and develops it, it reveals her mother mouthing to the camera the same phrase used by Churchill. What is the connection? What is the meaning of that cryptic phrase?

Flavia, of course, is intrigued and must get to the bottom of the mystery, but meantime, she hatches a plan that she hopes will resurrect her dead mother who has been encased in ice for ten years. Yes, this eleven-year-old girl is convinced that she knows how to raise the dead, and she is determined to do it in order to put a smile on the face of her dour, tragically unhappy, and much-loved father. As I said, it all seems just a bit contrived and a stretch even for so imaginative a creature as Flavia.  

In this book, we meet the same characters that we've come to know in previous series entries. The wonderful and mysterious (at least to Flavia) Dogger, the family's general factotum. Aunt Felicity, Flavia's father's sister, who it seems also had a role to play in the intelligence service of her country during World War II. Mrs. Mullet, the housekeeper/cook who keeps the family going through all manner of trials and tragedies. And, of course, the two older hated/loved sisters, Daphne (Daffy) and Ophelia (Feely), and all the villagers that Flavia regularly comes in contact with.

But here we also get introduced to a couple of new de Luce family members, cousin Lena and her young daughter, Undine. Undine seems a very precocious child in the same mold as Flavia and I suspect we will be seeing much more of her in future books.    


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This week in birds - #191

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment: 

Kinglets are cute and very active little birds. They are really tiny, not much bigger than our most common hummingbirds. There are two species that are endemic to North America. We don't have either of them here in Southeast Texas as a permanent resident, but we always look forward to the return of at least one of them in the fall. It's one of my favorite winter residents.

And here it is - the little Ruby-crowned Kinglet. He's traveling incognito, keeping his ruby crown hidden, as he usually does unless he's disturbed or displaying it for a potential mate. Note the white eye ring and wing bars. 

This is his cousin, the Golden-crowned Kinglet, which I photographed (not very well, I admit) at Big Bend National Park in West Texas. Note the prominent white eye stripe. They are known to wander throughout much of the eastern United States in winter, but I've never personally seen one in this area.

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Birders and other lovers of our national parks and wildlife refuge system are rejoicing that the armed occupation of Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon appears to be almost over. The leaders of the uprising have been arrested, with, unfortunately, the death of one of their misguided crew. Those under arrest will be denied bail until all of their followers have vacated the refuge. Their leader has appealed to them to pack up and go, but some are still occupying the refuge's visitor center. The refuge is considered a crime scene and will continue to be closed until the investigation is wrapped up and evidence gathered. Then the cleanup can begin, damage can be repaired, and the refuge can be made ready for its spring visitors - both feathered and human. 

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I have reported here at various times over the years on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's project of using ultralight aircraft to lead young human-reared Whooping Cranes from Wisconsin on their fall migration to Florida. The idea was to establish an eastern flock of the endangered birds to guard against the species being wiped out by some catastrophe with the Canada/Texas wild flock. The project started in 2001 and has had very limited success. It is expensive and the FWS has decided that it can no longer support it after the most recent flight. If the project is to continue, it will have to be financed privately.

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Northern Bobwhites are one of the prairie species that have been declining precipitously in recent years. Conservation efforts have focused on trying to reestablish them in their former habitats and some of those efforts are bearing fruit. It was reported this week that the birds that have been reintroduced in New Jersey are surviving and, indeed, thriving, offering hope for the bird's future. 

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A new comprehensive bipartisan(!) energy bill is being debated in the Senate. It is meant to update the nation’s power grid and oil and gas transportation systems to address major changes in the ways that power is now produced in the United States. It's probably just as well that Ted Cruz is otherwise occupied and not around to filibuster it.

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Solar and wind energy have enormous up sides, but their down side is that they can cause harm to some animals, especially those that fly. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has to decide just how much harm is permitted before the energy entity must pay a fine and/or make adjustments in the way it is operating. The FWS had planned to issue 30-year permits for such companies, establishing how many Bald and Golden Eagles they could kill before facing penalties. Conservationists went to court on behalf of the eagles to stop that permitting system and this week the eagles and the conservationists won. The FWS will have to come up with another plan.

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The genome of the 'Alalā (Hawaiian Crow) has been successfully sequenced, which will aid conservationists as they attempt to reintroduce the bird to the wild.

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Who knew that New Jersey has a diamondback terrapin hunting season? In fact, they do, but it has been cut back because of fears that it was too severely impacting the population of the animal.

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One might imagine that green spaces in metropolitan areas are not that important to wildlife populations, but one would be wrong. In fact, such spaces contribute quite substantially to wildlife diversity and the ability of wildlife to survive and thrive among us.

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A genetically unique pod of Alaskan orcas seems headed for extinction because it has not been able to reproduce since the Exxon Valdez oil spill more than two decades ago.

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White Storks are opportunistic birds that have learned to take advantage of what humans provide. Many of the birds are now overwintering at garbage dumps or fish farms instead of migrating to their traditional wintering grounds.

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A banded Lesser Black-backed Gull photographed last January at Daytona Beach, Florida, has been photographed there once again this week.

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A U.S. Appeals Court has ruled that Snowy Owls near Kennedy Airport in New York can be killed if they are deemed to pose a threat to human air travel.

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Winter, it seems, is not coming. In fact, winter may be dying. Warm Arctic storms are unfreezing the North Pole with temperatures 55 degrees (F) above normal for January.

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More than 20 years ago, the San Francisco Estuary Institute, a nonprofit scientific advisory group, began an ambitious effort to guide the restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But the scientists there soon ran into a huge, unanticipated question: What should the restored terrain look like, and how should its natural systems function? The ecology of the place had been so compromised that it was virtually impossible to answer that question. They have had to resort to historical documents and pictures to try to determine what their steps should be in restoring the place.

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Environmental change is just one more challenge that birds must face and overcome in order to survive. Those birds with diverse migration strategies appear to have an advantage in coping with those changes.

Vertigo 42 by Martha Grimes: A review

Vertigo 42: A Richard Jury Mystery by Martha Grimes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The books in Martha Grimes' Richard Jury series often are rich in literary and film references and this one is no exception. The homage to Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo is perhaps obvious from the title, but there are also overt references to Thomas Hardy and William Butler Yeats, as well as more subtle nods to Oscar Wilde and even the Bard himself, Shakespeare. It all makes for a fun game for the reader, a kind of hide-and-go-seek, which is an actual game that plays a part in one of the mysterious deaths of the plot.

Once again, Jury is called upon to investigate a cold case, this time as a favor to a friend. Seventeen years before, Tess Williamson died in a fall down stone steps in the garden of her house in Devon. The verdict on the death was left open, as no definitive conclusion could be reached, but the inspector in charge of the investigation at the time leaned toward an accidental death due to the victim's known problems with vertigo. Her husband, Tom, is convinced that her death was murder, and, in that conclusion, he has an ally in another detective who was involved in the original investigation, Jury's friend, Brian Macalvie.

Tom is also friends with Sir Oscar Maples, another in Jury's circle of friends, and it is Maples who suggests to him that Jury might be willing to investigate the death, and it is he who delivers the request to Jury. Jury meets with Williamson at Vertigo 42, a bar in a City of London tower, hears his story, and agrees to look into the case.

One curious aspect of Tess's death is that five years before, a nine-year-old girl had also died in a fall at the Devon home, during a children's party that Tess was hosting. The victim was a particularly nasty child who was not liked by any of the other children, or, for that matter, any adults. There was suspicion that she was pushed and Tess was a suspect, but, again, there was no conclusive evidence and the verdict was left open.

So, two suspicious deaths seventeen and twenty-two years earlier, but before Jury can get very far into his investigation, another death occurs near the village where his friend Melrose Plant lives. A woman dressed in an expensive red silk dress and four-inch-high red heels dies in a fall from a tower. Did she jump? Was she pushed? How did she climb to the top of that tower in those four-inch heels? When it turns out that this woman was one of the children who were present at that party in Devon long ago when the little girl died, Jury sees a pattern and suspects that there may have been three murders.

Then, the woman's husband also turns up dead of gunshot wounds with his dog Stanley standing guard over his body. Four deaths - two in the past and two in the present - dot this intricate and compelling plot. How will Jury ever sort this puzzle out?

This is the latest entry in the Richard Jury series, number 23, and it isn't clear if there will be any more. If indeed it does turn out to be the last one, then Grimes will have ended on a fairly high note. This was a strong effort, more so than some of the recent books in which she seemed to be just phoning it in.

As usual, the plot meandered all over the countryside between Devon and London and it encompassed visits with most of the recurring characters that we've come to know and love (or hate) over the years. It had the usual quirky animals, but at least this time we didn't spend time inside the animals' heads watching their nonverbal reaction to events. There were no charming children this time around, which made for a bit of a change. But, all in all, particularly with the literary allusions, it hit all the notes that we've come to expect from Martha Grimes and it was a fun summer read.

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The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian: A review

The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two years ago, I started reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series after years of prodding by my husband who insisted that the books weren't really war adventures - which I would hate - but were more about the relationships of the men on the ships. Finally succumbing to his persuasion, I found that hubby was right. Again.

In fact, I do like this series very much. I've been reading it now at a rate of about five books a year, more or less, and if I continue on that pace, I should have at least two more years of good reading ahead. So far, I have not found a stinker among the books and this tenth one is, I think, my favorite of all that I've read.

The bromance between Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin continues in The Far Side of the World. Aubrey is still captaining the Surprise which, much to his distress, had been designated to return to England to be decommissioned and possibly broken up for scrap. But he and the ship get a reprieve. He is commanded to take the ship to protect English whalers and to stop the American frigate, the Norfolk, from interfering with them.

The Surprise chases the Norfolk all across the Atlantic, along the coast of South America, and finally around Cape Horn and into the vast openness of the Pacific Ocean. They never come very close to catching the Americans and they have many adventures along the way.

The trip sees one of the most serious disagreements ever to occur between Aubrey and Maturin when Aubrey refuses to allow Maturin and his friend, the parson Martin, time to explore the Galapagos Islands. The captain is convinced that they are getting closer to Norfolk and he will not dim his chances by slowing down for science.

Maturin is angry, but his is not a nature that can hold a grudge for long.

Sometime later,  through a combination of circumstances, Maturin, who has never really mastered the art of seamanship in all his years as a ship's surgeon, manages to fall from the ship into the Pacific. Aubrey turns to speak to him and finds him gone. He realizes almost immediately what has happened and jumps in to save his friend, who is not a proficient swimmer. He gets the doctor stabilized and begins to hail the ship to bring them on board, but there is a noisy celebration going on and the crew cannot hear him. The ship obliviously continues on its course, leaving the two treading water in the middle of the Pacific.

Things do not look hopeful, but there follows some of the most exciting adventures encountered by Aubrey/Maturin in all their years together. It won't really be a spoiler to say that they do survive. Since there are ten more books in the series, that's pretty evident, but how they survive is the real heart of this book and the bang-up ending just puts the capper on it.

Some of the recent books have put the emphasis on Stephen Maturin's secret work as an intelligence agent. This one is centered on Jack Aubrey's skills as a sailor and his knowledge of the ocean - if not always of human nature. Their relationship continues to deepen and grow stronger through their shared experiences. They often give a thought to their wives back in England, and Aubrey to his children there, but, in fact, they are more married to each other than to any woman. They spend more time with each other than with any other humans. They are very much like an old married couple - each knowing what the other is thinking even before the thought is expressed. The other members of the crew, like Aubrey's man Killick and Maturin's Padeen, make up their extended family. The Surprise is very much a family and these stories, while nominally following the English Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, are really about the relationships of this family and how they care for each other in often trying circumstances. So, yes, hubby was right about that.

One of the many pleasures of these books is the language. O'Brian obviously was a careful researcher and his language feels true to the period about which he is writing. I'm not competent to assess the accuracy of his nautical terms, many of which my eyes glide right over, but I suspect they are spot on. The language that really grabs me, though, is that of the dialogue. It is full of such humor and it just seems to be the way that sailors of the period would talk. It is a real treat to read a conversation between Maturin and Aubrey and, in this particular book, between Maturin and his friend Martin.

Both Maturin and Martin are enthusiastic naturalists and most of their conversations concern the flora and fauna of the places they visit. They are particularly good on the birds of those areas. For a backyard birder like myself, those conversations are really some of my favorite parts of this book.

There was, of course, a movie made a few years ago - "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" - which mostly relied on the events from this book. I saw the movie in the theater at the time and quite enjoyed it, although, now, I can't really recall too much about what happened in it. Now that I've read the book, maybe I should see it again.      


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Backyard Nature Wednesday: Hummingbird migration (With update)

This is one of the two most exciting times of the year for birders. The first, of course, is spring migration when wave after wave of bright and noisy songbird migrants pass through on their way north to their nesting grounds. The second is fall migration which is a much quieter affair.

Fall migrants do not bear the bright colorful feathers that they wore in spring when they were ready to attract mates and get on with nesting. Moreover, they are much more silent for the same reason. They are not looking for a mate; they are looking to safely get to their winter homes. They are entirely focused on that goal. The result is that, unless one is out specifically looking for the birds, thousands can easily pass through unnoticed in a matter of days.

Most of the fall migrants pass through relatively quickly. They don't tarry with us for long. Hummingbirds are something of an exception to this rule. They may stick around for days or even weeks while they fatten up to ready themselves for their long journey. The hummingbirds that come through here - primarily Ruby-throated, Black-chinned, and Rufous - may go as far south as Costa Rica and Panama, although many Rufous hummers do winter in the Gulf Coast states. For the past several years, I've had as many as three Rufous Hummingbirds wintering in my yard.

Here are some maps from Journey North which show where hummingbirds have been reported this week. (You can report your own sightings to their website.)     

This map shows reports of adult male hummingbirds. The adult males generally lead the way in hummingbird migration both in spring and in fall. Look along the Gulf Coast of Texas and you will see a lot of those red circles stacked up on top of each other. Well, those are right over my backyard! My yard is teeming with hummingbirds this week. 

This map shows reports of all species, sexes, and ages of hummers. You can see that there are still some circles far north, even well into Canada. These would primarily be females and immatures by this time of year.

Hummingbirds are endemic only in the Americas. There are more than 300 species of the unique little birds and most of those live in the tropics. Historically, there are 18 species that make their summer homes in North America, although as the climate changes, more and more of those tropical species are moving farther north and some now routinely are found in the United States during summer.

In the same way that tropical species are moving farther north, western species are being found more often in the eastern part of the continent. Again, historically, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird was the only one found in the East, and it still comprises the vast majority of the sightings east of the Rocky Mountains. But Anna's, Costa's, Calliope, Broad-tailed, Violet-crowned, and Buff-bellied are becoming more and more commonly reported in the eastern parts of the country.

The gorget of a male Ruby-throated hummer glows as he comes in for a sip from one of my nectar feeders.

This is a female Ruby-throat who has spent the summer in my garden. She will probably be here at least a few more weeks before she moves on southward.

I haven't yet seen a Rufous Hummingbird in fall migration. This is one of the females that spent the winter with me in 2014-15. I usually start seeing the Rufous hummers coming through in late August, so any day now...

This is a subadult male Rufous that was here last winter.

Last spring, we took a trip to South Texas to see the birds there and one of the ones that we saw was the Buff-bellied Hummingbird.

Our Buff-bellied was visiting a feeder that had been set up at the visitors' center of one of the parks we visited.

Note his distinctive red bill. That is an unmistakable field mark for this bird, which is actually becoming quite common in South Texas. It hasn't made it as far north as my yard yet.

Wherever you are on the North American continent, keep your eyes open over the next several weeks and you may just see one of these tiny visitors passing through. And if you are in a situation where you can hang out a nectar feeder for them, you will better your chances because these guys are hungry!

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UPDATE: Here's a link to an interesting story in Slate.com today about hummingbird aggression. They are very fierce little birds.

This week in birds - #454

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

I always enjoy his dulcet songs when I'm out and about in my yard. House Finches are an almost constant presence.

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One of the biggest environmental stories of the week was the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. The sponsor of the pipeline pulled the plug on it after Canadian officials were unsuccessful in changing President Biden's mind about the project. Environmentalists who had fought the project since it was first announced in 2008 called the cancellation a "landmark moment" in the effort to curb the use of fossil fuels.

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More good news for the environment: Officials of the Biden administration have moved to reinstate the roadless rule in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. This revives the 20-year-old protections for the forest that were stripped by the previous administration three months before the end of its term in office.

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And in more reversals of policies put in place by the previous administration, President Biden moved to undo many of the ways that administration altered the means by which habitats of plants and animals on the verge of extinction are protected and kept from total collapse.

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Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the U.S. by volume but it has fallen to historic lows as a result of the devastating drought in the West. It will be at its lowest point since the 1930s when Hoover Dam was built and officials are expecting it to go even lower. The human-made lake is currently at approximately 36% of its capacity. 

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In a 2011 survey by the Fish and Wildlife Service, it was found that 93% of birders were White and only 4% were Black. Black Birders Week was instituted to bring attention to the hobby for those who might feel left out of it. The message is "Birds are here for everyone."

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How can the world's richer countries best help poor countries deal with the challenges associated with climate change? The G-7 leaders meeting this week acknowledge that adequate climate financing for the most at-risk countries must be a central priority.

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One of the climate problems facing some of those poor countries is wetter monsoons. Scientists have known for years that climate change is disrupting the monsoon season. Increased moisture in the warmed atmosphere is expected to result in rainier summer monsoon seasons and unpredictable, extreme rainfall events.

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The desert seems an ideal place for constructing large solar projects to generate clean energy but it is important to plan such projects so that they do not harm rare plants and animals.

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In 2019, Audubon reported that without meaningful action to mitigate the effects of climate change, two-thirds of American bird species like this Northern Parula could be at risk of extinction. Now they have published the Natural Climate Solutions Report that provides a scientific framework for addressing the existential threat.

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Salmon are facing extinction in the American West and four dams are the prime cause of their plight. But 17 million juvenile Chinook salmon that need to reach the ocean in order to complete their life cycle are getting a helping hand from the state of California. The state is transporting the fish to the ocean in trucks.

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Microscopic animals called rotifers that were frozen in the Siberian permafrost when woolly mammoths still roamed the planet have been restored to life as though no time had passed. These must surely rate as some of the toughest creatures on the planet.

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Analysis of the fossil record shows that there was a mysterious mass extinction of sharks some 19 million years ago. The event decimated the diversity of sharks in the world's oceans and they have never fully recovered that diversity.

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Protection Island, Washington, about two-and-a-half miles off the coast of that state, has one human resident and plenty of wildlife. The human, Marty Bluewater, has a lifetime tenancy on the Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge that has been his home for fifty years. 

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Peacocks that are descendants of a small population that were imported by a wealthy businessman in the late nineteenth century are threatening to overrun Los Angeles County. The birds have flourished in the climate there and are often fed by residents. But now such feeding is being forbidden by ordinance and scofflaws can be fined up to $1000 or sent to jail for six months.

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In other news from California, the majestic redwoods that were seriously damaged by wildfires last year are showing signs of recovery.

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Republicans in several states around the country are taking their stand on the side of global warming. They are threatening retaliation against banks that refuse to lend to coal, oil, and gas companies. Apparently, they don't believe in the power of the marketplace after all - at least when it behaves in ways they don't approve of.

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This story just makes my blood boil! A drone that was being flown illegally over the Bolsa Chica ecological reserve in California crashed on a beach that was the nesting site of Elegant Terns. The frightened terns, believing they were being attacked by a predator, abandoned their nests. Those nests had about 3,000 eggs in them waiting to hatch.

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The EPA is set to reverse the previous administration's efforts to scale back the number of streams, marshes, and other wetlands that fall under federal protection. The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers will craft a new set of protections for waterways that provide habitats for wildlife and safe drinking water for millions of Americans.

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The annual count of Red Knots along Delaware Bay beaches has shown another severe drop in the numbers of the birds. It is the steepest decline in years and it threatens the Red Knots' continued survival.

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Scientists have compiled a detailed database from tens of thousands of hours of observation of African elephant behavior. 

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The Lesser Prairie-Chicken will now be protected under the Endangered Species Act according to an announcement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week. The bird's range includes parts of five states: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.