En Garde!

It is spring and apparently it is rutting season among the Zebra doves.



And I do mean rutting. They do not seem to behave exactly like your common or garden pigeon. That is the females seem to be about just as oblivious as pigeons, that is one often seems what I can only assume are the males (its much harder to tell than with pigeons, the males do not have any iridescence like the pigeon) bobbing and bowing to the females cooing charmingly and the females wandering off in the usual manner leaving a rather deflated male behind. I have NEVER witnessed any intercourse between Zebra doves. I can only assume it occurs privately given the Hitchcockian quantities despite the vast population of feral cats in Honolulu and the two or three squabs I've seen huddling in the undergrowth which also leads me to assume they are ground nesting birds.

Recently however the males have begun rutting. Two birds begin bobbing and bowing to each other, cooing of course, in a matter indistinguishable from the more common amorous advances except in its mirrored reciprocation in the party of the second part, I assume another male. The two birds advance and retreat, bobbing and cooing the whole time, crabwise towards each other sometimes jumping into the air and scrabbling and eventually one flies away or they both seem to loose interest.

I could of course have the whole thing backwards. Perhaps the former behavior is aggressive and the latter amorous. I could look it up but I much prefer observation of the Zebra dove to fact. They're odd little birds and I am astonished they haven't been all eaten or run over by now.

Scale

There is a wonderful and infinitely thrilling sense of vertigo that goes along with science. The mind boggling numbers, the impossible to comprehend tracks of space not only in the macro universe but also the micro is amazing. It scares the shit out of a lot of people who's reaction is to feel insignificant or immaterial. They seem to feel the vastness of space only serves to make them smaller. In the words of Richard Dawkins, "some people find this thought disturbing, I find the reality thrilling."

There was a wonderful exhibit at the natural history museum in Boston. Though it might have been the science museum, in fact it probably was. The exhibit consisted of a big room. In the center of the room was a giant globe, at least two stories high, ringed by a walk way. Set on displays along the walk way were plagues and objects, from the size of a grain of sand up through a beach ball. Each plaque read with a note on the comparative size of the object to the giant sphere if the object where A and the sphere B. For instance a pingpong ball might be labeled "if the sphere is jupiter this is the earth." From the macro to the micro, comparing the ball to a microbe and the sphere to a drop of water and such. I remember this being the most delightful exhibit in the museum as it allowed the mind to venture into that terrifying and thrilling realm of imaginary SCALE!

More thrilling even than the vastness of space or the constant interchange of atoms, I think, is the capacity for the human mind to comprehend and hold even a fraction of the information, or to infer, from almost nothing, things we can not even see! The capacity for the human mind to expostulate and imagine and THINK.

"January is Bustin' Out All Over!"

Spring.

The weather in Hawai'i is beautiful. I have no issue with the weather day to day. But there is no spring in the true northeastern sense that induced Richard Rogers to write the exuberant lyrics to "June is Bustin' out All Over!"

My experience of return to Hawai'i was spring. I love the winter, but what I love most about the seasons is the change. Summer weather is dull if not taken in context. The pleasure of the weather is increased by the experience of winter and the knowledge of its transience. The turning of the seasons clears the slate for the new year and gives us a true appreciation of all weathers good or bad.

Not to say that Hawaiian seasons are non existent or "wrong". They are what they are. But they are not of my native clime, and exist in contradiction to my experience of the world.

On temperate adjustment

It is a cold cold winter here in New England this year.

I personally have lived in the subtropics for about three years now, though I was born in the north east, and one of the things everyone complains about when they go home to visit more temperate climes is how much their blood has thinned living in the land of the coco palm.

I don't find that to be the case. In fact, it is interesting how little my system is shocked by the drastic change in climate. Now, don't get me wrong, six degrees is cold. But six degrees has always been cold. It just doesn't seem any colder than it has always been.

Interestingly enough what has been effected is entirely external. I spent the first three days with painfully chapped lips, from which I never suffer, even in the winters. My skin, which usually has time to acclimate itself to the cold was very shocked indeed. I will be curious to see whether it will become extraordinarily greasy when I return to more balmy climes. I do recall having that sort of problem when first I moved.

We will see.

Ironicly enough, my house in the winter is 63 degrees, which is pretty cold. I wear sweat pants socks a T-shirt, sweater, and fleece in doors. My classroom back in the tropics is air conditioned to 58 degrees. Generally, I wear light cotton pants, a T-shirt or tank top, and sandals in the tropics...

Someone somewhere is crazy. And he's running building operations for the university.

“Well doc, you know those tiny birds that clean our teeth. Lately I’ve been eating those guys like popcorn”

There are these tiny little birds here called common waxbills. They're ridiculously small. Where I come from birds that size would freeze solid within 15 seconds. As I oft observe, I want to take three or four of 'em, pop 'em in my mouth and start eatin' 'em like popcorn...

Not really... I mean... that would be kinda gross, not to mention the serious hygienic and social issues that arise from that sort of behaviors.

What is particularly impressive about the little guys is their numbers. All the individuals on campus seem to roost in the same bamboo hedge in the art building. The pure volume of tiny bird is incredible, it brings to mind both Hitchcock and the scene in The Mummy with the flesh eating scarabs.

Anyway... I'm gonna go make popcorn...