During our visit to the South Coast Botanic Gardens today, this little butterfly perched near the dahlia exhibit. We don’t go to the gardens only for the flowers; we love to see the hummingbirds, butterflies, dragon flies and whatever else happens to come our way.
Click the image for the 1024×768 pixel version.
Bear, our long-time family pet, doesn’t get to go for a ride very often. Most times she goes to the vet or to the kennel in the truck, but today was different. We had to run a couple of errands after our session at the shooting range and we decided to bring Bear with us. Instead of being taken into the usual dog places, she got to explore, sniff and enjoy herself while CB was in the store shopping.
As she gets a little older, we want to take her to more places when we go. Even if the destination is mundane to us, she seems to think we’re having a great adventure. A while back, we got her a little doggie staircase to make the jump into the truck a little easier for her. She was leery at first, but now gets very excited when I get the staircase out, because that means we’re going somewhere.
Not much time to blog today, we had to go shopping, fill the tank ($75), sit in the patio and hang out with ‘Bear.’ Tomorrow, the truck to goes for periodic maintenance to the service department and we take the training for our Utah CCW permits.
Our vacation next month will take us to places where the permit is valid, so the maintenance for the truck and the CCW training are mandatory, as far as we’re concerned. Bear is happy for us, as you can see.
She doesn’t get to do this very often, but yesterday, we took ‘Bear’ for a drive to several stops on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. She enjoyed exploring the Neptune Fountain at the Palos Verdes Estates civic center, the Point Vicente Interpretive Center (shown in the picture) and a couple of other stops on the peninsula.
I think she was happy, but it must have tired her out – all that doggie exploration – because she slept most of the morning today.
Reggie has been in the zoo for a year now.
We followed the story about Reggie, the suburban alligator, almost from the start:
Alligators in the Sewers – Still!
Alligators in the Sewers – Part IV
Alligators in the Sewers – Part V
Alligators in the Sewers – Part VI
Alligators in the Sewers – Part VII
Alligators in the Sewers – Epilogue?
Alligators in the Sewers – Reggie, Where Ya Been?
Alligators in the Sewers – The Epilogue
Unfortunately, some of the earlier posts (Parts I, II and III) were lost when we converted from our old blog format to WordPress.
The story started when a San Pedro resident introduced the alligator to Machado Lake in a Harbor City Park when he decided that he couldn’t keep his exotic pet any longer. Authorities later traced the animal to the resident and brought appropriate charges.
The alligator, however, managed to elude potential captors for a couple of years and laid low in the park’s lake. The ‘gator became a celebrity in his own right as sightings by park visitors continued to be reported.
A year ago, a team from the Los Angeles Zoo managed to snare the reclusive reptile.
Here’s a report on the health and welfare of our favorite ‘gator from the Daily Breeze:
This week, the Department of the Interior caved in to the Greenbats by declaring a thriving species “endangered.”
From Planet Gore:
Polar Bears: More Journalistic Malpractice [Henry Payne]
How do you declare a species endangered when its numbers are increasing?
Once again, my profession — journalism — failed its fundamental duty to report the facts Wednesday as the Interior Department bowed to political pressure from green groups to declare polar bears an threatened species due to global warming. This, despite the fact that bear populations have increased from 5,000–10,000 in the early 1970s to between 20,000 and 25,000 today (during the very period their habitat was allegedly shrinking). This is in part due to concentrated efforts to impose harvesting controls that have allowed this once-overhunted species to recover.
Indeed, Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a bear biologist with the Canadian government, wrote in 2006: “There is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”
GLOBALONEY wrote an excellent article on thriving polar bears in January. Included here is a very entertaining animation of thriving bears I found on Globaloney. Click for full size.
According to new research, the numbers of the giant predator have grown by between 15 and 25 per cent over the last decade.
Some authorities on Arctic wildlife even claim that hunting, and not global arming, has been the real cause of the decrease in polar bear numbers in areas where the species is in decline.
A leading Canadian authority on polar bears, Mitch Taylor, said: “We’re seeing an increase in bears that’s really unprecedented, and in places where we’re seeing a decrease in the population it’s from hunting, not from climate change.”
Mr Taylor estimates that during the past decade, the Canadian polar bear population has increased by 25 per cent – from 12,000 to 15,000 bears.
UPDATE: Iain Murray offers that this is NOT about polar bears.
Quite right. This was nothing to do with the polar bear and everything to do with advancing a ludicrous “alternative energy now” agenda.
It appears that Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne is listening to whoever beats the drum louder. In the case of the polar bears, science disagrees with the listing, but Kempthorne is concerned about a ‘legacy.’ In an unrelated issue, that of carrying firearms in National Parks, Kempthorne listened to 51 U.S. Senators who recommended a rules change to allow the NPS to comply with local state law on carrying.
This puts Kempthorne in a position to be embraced by greens and gunners alike.
Don’t you just love politicians?
This handsome fellow perched on the power pole behind our house this morning. He then took up the song and dance routine that is so familiar to us in spring and summer months.
The same bird is seen in both panels of this composite image. Click for a closer look.
The Mockingbird entry in WikiPedia explains a bit more:
Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the Mimidae family. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds, often loudly and in rapid succession. Mockingbirds also have a reputation of being fierce defenders of their nests.
