Warning: This post will probably make some of you think that I’m crazy. 😉 The New York Times Magazine recently published a piece called “The Animals Are Talking. What Does It Mean?”, which explores research that shows animals communicate. With language. This might be surprising to some people. It’s not to me. For decades, I’ve …
I often meet Aly for Spanish lessons at the Peet’s Coffee at 37th and Hawthorne. There are a lot of interesting things to see there. Sometimes there’s a group of young men skateboarding on 37th, blocking traffic and the sidewalk and getting cranky when people ask them to stop. There are often petitioners. For some …
For living just a few miles from the center of the city, we sure have a lot of animals around this place! In fact, tonight as I was putting together a video about our bunny, I realized I’ve made all sorts of short movies about the animals of Rosings Park. Let’s look at some of …
It cracks me up that I haven’t haven’t written much lately. As usual, that means there’s actually too much going on in my life, not too little. For example: As many of you know, Mom is currently in the memory-care unit of an assisted living facility. I won’t go into details (yet), but she had …
I’ve had a rough 48 hours. Toto’s death has affected me more than you can probably guess. I knew it would. That cat was like a piece of me, and I feel her absence acutely. It hurts. “It always amazes me how emotional you are,” Kris told me last night at dinner. “You’re so much …
Nicole — who knows I love stories about animal intelligence — wrote in to share the tale of Chaser, the smartest dog in the world. Or at least the dog with the largest vocabulary. Here’s the story, as reported by Animal Planet: As part of a three year training course at Wofford College taught by …
When I was a boy, I loved nature films. We saw a lot of these in school, of course, but once in a while, Dad would actually take me to see one in the theater. My favorite nature film was Born Free, about Elsa, the lioness who was raised from a cub by humans in …
Via Frykitty, here’s a great video of a man interacting with a lioness and her cubs. She seems to trust him completely: My favorite part of this video is how the lioness is so cat-like. Her mannerisms are just like those of a common housecat. In fact, if you watch how the lioness acts in …
We’ve had cat-food bandits at Rosings Park for the past couple of weeks. We’ve suspected raccoons, but we never had proof until now. Yesterday morning, Toto and I had some visitors: You can read the full story of the raccoons on my porch at my newly-revived animal blog.
It’s been a l-o-n-g time since I had fun with photography, but I’ve been using my cameras more and more recently. I like it. And while my “photography eye” hasn’t quite returned yet, I am beginning to see possibilities. For instance, today at the Clackamas County Fair, I spied a litter of piglets. I knew …