If you’re a normal person you’d see a wasp and determine that it was time to exit with haste.
If you were me you’d think, “Fascinating insect, how lucky! Some kind of Polistes species maybe? Must get closer to try to ID the species and get some photos.”
That’s when and where I started birdwatching. I kept seeing an unusual (to me) bird, like black-and-white checked with some red on the nape (turned out to be a red-bellied woodpecker). When I told my grandfather about it, he gave me his copy of the Peterson Field Guide (which now I can’t find, but it’s somewhere under a pile of important things that we piled up).
The other thing I discovered in Austin are screech owls, which (when I’ve heard them) do not actually “screech” but, merciful heavens, I don’t think I’ve heard anything creepier sounding than those.
Yeah, screech owl calls are pretty creepy. There’s a barred owl that visits our yard on rare nights, their calls can be pretty creepy too.
If you’re still in Austin, every Spring for the last many years there’s been a great horned owl that nests in the entry to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. This was in Apr. 2015:
Nope, I’m in Maryland now, near DC. We did get a snowy owl in our neighborhood a few years ago – a neighbor reported it, and I didn’t believe him, simply because we don’t live in the Arctic. But since then there have been reports in WaPo about several being in the area.
So lucky! The last few years there have seen irruptions of snowy owls. The 2013-2014 irruption was huge, some made it down to South Carolina and there was even a sighting in Florida(!). It’s possibly related to global warming, warmer temps. in the Arctic->more voles->larger populations->more pressure to move further south to find food.
Well, no. And the shovel was handier, granted. I just thought it was funny that the snake was right between me and the ordinary implement of his destruction.
Its northern cousin did the exact same thing to me when I was little… I had a ladybug in my hand that I was playing with – for the first second I thought that it had just taken flight and smacked into my eye, but then the pain set in…
A minor silver lining in a cloud of shit that the law is, since schools, hospitals and so on are not private property and are obvious targets for unstable people. And other people are required to be there, so having the right to brandish a weapon (and come on, that’s all open carry is, innit?) still trumps the safety of others overall.
I get your point. But, to the side, if you think carrying something visibly equates to brandishing it, well, you’ve never seen a weapon properly brandied about! It’s quite meaningfully different.
(Not me in this video - but it’s a good slow example of a simple two-hand moulinet, which is a sort of entry-level brandishing. I’ve seen SCAdian duelists do stuff that makes this look pretty tame.)
Oh, I have done Liechtenauer’s Fechtschule, so I know the Zornhau, the Hutenlauf and all the other ways to fight with a Anderthalbhänder (though I preferred the Langes Messer).
I will also admit that the last time I was in Texas (October 2015), I did not see any open carry of weapons, not even the famous hunting rifle in the pickup. I did get the opinion that open carry was not popular in the Hill Country, that it was considered, well, tacky. And the one time I did see it, you could tell the guy was itching for attention. Thus my usage of the word “brandishing”. Maybe not as flamboyant, but it was “hey, look at what I got!” attitude.
The half-swording techniques in those German schools are very interesting. I almost never see anyone manage to do one in competition, and it seems to me to be one of those things that only works properly in a real fight to the death (similar to the way you can’t just smash somebody’s elbow with a hammer, mace or poleaxe right through their shield - in most sport combat systems, shields are invulnerable, and in the Dagohir-derived systems there’s no real simulation of force).
I spend weekend nights in a park watching animals on infrared and night vision. There’s an owl I’ve been having trouble identifying, and I never seem to catch sight of it. But it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard when it calls. It will suddenly start out with a single high-pitched screech that increases in pitch. That shriek lasts about 2 seconds, somewhat like a barn owl screech, but lower pitched than that. Then it abruptly stops the shriek and transitions into a very loud insistent-sounding hoot that’s exactly the same as a barred owl’s call. But all the audio samples I’ve heard of barred owls don’t include any kind of screech or shriek.
It catches me off guard sometimes when I’m looking at something on the ground. Just this booming shriek overhead that sounds like something being tortured. Then I hear the hoots and am relieved it’s just the owl.
We have both barred owls and barn owls here in Western Washington, but this is definitely a single individual doing a set-pattern. It’s always the same, the piercing shriek followed by a few seconds of booming hoots.
After going through Youtube I think I might be hearing a Northern Spotted owl. I didn’t think there’d be any where I lived so I’ve been ruling it out. But besides the screech, the hoots sound exactly the same. If spotted owls do screech then I’d be elated to know that there’s a spotted owl in the park next door.
Barbaric. I’ve disposed of many nests using only a bic lighter and a can of deodorant.
It’s instant, and their micro-thin flammable wings ensure that none of them get away.