ASCII Art of Birds, images created with the ASCII character set by artists in love with the keyboard. Follow the Animals then Birds links in the left frame.
Harford Bird Club Harford County, Maryland, just south of York County PA. Includes info about Conowingo Dam, a top birding location for large numbers of gulls and Bald Eagles from mid-October to mid-March. The winter of 1989-99 gull observations include Kelp, Slaty-back, California, Thayer's, Iceland, Glaucous, Lesser Black-backed, Great Black-backed, Herring, Ring-billed. Between 20,000 and 25,000 gulls have been reported in one day. See recent postings MDOsprey
The PABirds email list: Birds and Birding in Pennsylvania
The list serves as a forum for birders to discuss all aspects of wild birdlife in Pennsylvania, including rare birds, bird finding, bird identification, bird behavior, backyard birding, trip reports, bird counts, and bird club information.
»To subscribe (it's free) mailto:LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG and put "SUBSCRIBE PABIRDS YourFirstname YourLastname" (w/o the quotes) as the body of the email message. Your name is optional. Capitalization doesn't matter. Leave the subject line blank. You will receive an automated confirmation with instructions on what to do next.
»To post a message to the list for all subscribers to receive mailto:PABIRDS@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG
»To suspend delivery of incoming messages (w/o unsubscribing from the list) if you will be away from your email for a period of time use the command SET PABIRDS NOMAIL as the body of the email message and mailto:LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG (no subject line)
»To resume delivery of incoming messages use the command SET PABIRDS MAIL as the body of the email message and mailto:LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG (no subject line)
»To unsubscribe from the list use the command UNSUBSCRIBE PABIRDS as the body of the email message and mailto:LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG (no subject line)
(Note that posts to the list, for all subscribers to recieve, get sent to the "PABIRDS@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG" address. Commands (SET...) to the list server program, to change your subscription options, get sent to the "LISTSERV@LIST.AUDUBON.ORG" address. The addresses are not interchangeable.)
See Info about pabirds list and Archives of PABIRDS (login required). The List archives at LIST.AUDUBON.ORG includes number of subscribers for each list. The LISTSERV general user's guide is a manual for L-Soft's LISTSERV software. Recent postings from the PA email list can be viewed without subscribing to the list at Birdingonthe.net's Recent Postings from the PA Birding List (quickest download time) and Virtual Birder B-Mail.
Historical snippet: In 1806 Pennsylvania enacted a state law providing a bounty of eight dollars for wolves, panthers, and other predators. Wolves & Panthers, once native to PA, have been eliminated from the state. Coyotes have moved into PA, being the adaptive & opportunistic species they are, taking advantage of the ecological void left by the elimination of wolves & panthers. Coyotes receive no protection in PA. Coyotes can be hunted throughout the year, including Sundays, a shoot-on-sight policy. The bag limit is unlimited. Coyotes can be trapped from October into February.
Kiski-Conemaugh Stream Team... to educate and engage citizen stewards in maintaining, enhancing and restoring the natural resources
of the Kiski-Conemaugh River Basin
Edward Abbey, 1927-1989, born & raised on a farm in Home, Indiana County, PA. Educated at the University of New Mexico & the University of Edinburgh. Died at home in Oracle, AZ in 1989. Author, novelist, essayist, environmentalist, desert anarchist, militant conservationist,....
His book 'The Monkey Wrench Gang' inspired the activist environmental group Earth First! No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth.
"Desert Solitaire (1968), a book of essays about the red rock country of Arches National Park and Canyon-lands National Park in Utah, tops some lists as the best twentieth-century book about the natural world." -James M. Cahalan
Abbey's novel "The Brave Cowboy" (1956) "was made into a pretty good movie by and with Kirk Douglas, Lonely Are The Brave (1962). Kirk regards this film as his best film ever."
Rachel Carson Homestead Springdale, Pennsylvania. The Rachel Carson Homestead is the birthplace and childhood home of ecologist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring launched the modern environmental movement.
Robert Griffing, artist born & raised in Linesville, PA (Pymatuning Lake). A leader in portraying Eastern Woodland Indians of the 18th Century. more Griffing...
Allan W. Eckert, born January 30 1931 in Buffalo NY & raised in the Chicago area. Historian, naturalist, novelist, poet, & playwright. His series of historical narratives entitled The Winning of America consists of six volumes, including The Frontiersmen, Wilderness Empire, The Conquerors, The Wilderness War, Gateway to Empire, and Twilight of Empire. I recommend these books to anyone interested in the frontier history of Pennsylvania & the struggles that took place between the Native inhabitants and the European immigrants-American colonists. I met Allan Eckert at a Waldenbooks book signing where I got a copy of his book That Dark and Bloody River, Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley autographed by him. His natural history writings includes the books, The Owls of North America and The Wading Birds of North America. A. Eckert biography...
International Dark-Sky Association, "To preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting."
Towerkill.com, bird kills at tall communications towers.
World population clock My thoughts: Some conservative "think tanks", motivated by religious fundamentalist attitudes or beliefs, actually think the earth has no limit to the number of people it can support. Their faith assumes that humanity has the wherewithal, the ingenuity, the scientific & technological prowess to "fix" or to adequately adapt humanity to any problems that will arise in the earth's ecosystem as a result of a burgeoning population. The Bible says (an example of religious literal justification for not practicing contraception & birth control):
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
-Genisis 1:28
The biological reproductive instinct drives us to saturate the space, the environment, in which we live. Humans have never before overpopulated the planet. We are probably destined to do so at least once - and learn a hard lesson in the process. Humans have the intelligence to control population, but not neccessarily the will to do so. Ultimately nature will impose, in not-so-pleasant ways, constraints on population that humans are unwilling to exercise. IMHO couples having more than two or three children are being reproductively irresponsible. ~end of thought~
The population of India exceeded one billion in May 2000. Populations in 2001: World 6.157 billion, China 1.273 billion, India 1.033 billion, United States 285 million. Projected populations for 2025: World 7.841 billion, China 1.431 billion, India 1.363 billion, United States 346 million. The projected world population for 2050 is 9.1+ billion.
Tim Vechter
For comments, links to be added, url corrections, etc.
This site was started August 1997
Home URL: http://www.westol.com/~towhee/redtail.htm
"In short, all good things are wild and free."
"..., that in Wildness is the preservation of the world."
-Henry David Thoreau
"In the woods, we return to reason and faith."
"Nature is loved by what is best in us."
"We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these things are the shining parts, is the soul."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
When man interferes with the Tao,
the sky becomes filthy,
the earth becomes depleted,
the equilibrium crumbles,
creatures become extinct.
Man follows the earth.
Earth follows the universe.
The universe follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.
Birding in Westmoreland County PA
Georgia O'Keefe, 1887-1986 American Artist. more O'Keefe...
