Athena’s Owls

Illustration from the Odyssey, which I’m currently reading

Owl in the Parthenon Museum, Athens. (July 11, 2025)

 More Owls

Ancient Greek coin

Not Athena’s Owl

From Evelyn in Lake Placid, NY this week

From our birding trip in the Netherlands, 2022.

Picasso kept a pet owl named Ubu, which inspired him to create many owl images,
though Ubu's life story is a bit sad, as is that of many captive owls

“Noopiming”

 

Noopiming  is a book about many things. It’s more like a collection of poems than a novel, but it also has characters — vivid characters — and social history about the life of Native Americans in Canada, both rural and urban. Here’s a wonderful passage about birds:

“It is a place where birds congregate because there is no other place left. There are more than three hundred species there and so it is well known by ornithologists and birdwatchers, and in the fall and spring the migrating songbirds and shore birds stop on their way to something better. … Asin watches the boreal owl hunt for voles at dusk, and then Asin rides back to their apartment. The boreal owl is antisocial and nocturnal, like Asin. They are a sit-and-wait predator the size of a robin. They sit fifteen to twenty feet above the ground in trees, close to the trunk. The summer is their breeding season. While there are considerably fewer species of birds than there used to be, birds are still engaged in the building blocks of their nation, and they work to reproduce not just their bodies, but all the structures, behaviours and beliefs that enable large-scale survival. There are large-ish colonies of double-crested cormorants and black-crowned night-herons. Asin does not have a life list of birds they have seen, because unlike most other birders, that’s not why Asin is here.“ (pp 110-113)

Boreal owls (from google)

Of course there are lots of passages about food as well. Here is one of my favorites: 

“In the spring, Adik, Akiwenzii and Sabe ate duck and turtle eggs. In the summer, they picked buckets full of berries, tended the garden and fished. In the fall, they were the busiest. They riced. They harvested the garden and cached it away for later. They hunted ducks and geese. They hunted deer and moose, dried meat and tanned hides.” (p 178)

This is an unconventional book. so I can’t write a conventional review. I checked, the reviewers at the time the book was published didn’t do it justice, in my opinion. It’s hard to read, but it’s worth the effort. 

Birds

Three Species of Booby

Birding in the Galapagos Islands is an adventure, as every bird seems to have something remarkable about it. Everyone is of course charmed by the boobies and especially remembers the blue-footed boobies because of the funny name and very unexpected color of their feet. The bluer they are, evidently, the healthier and better-nourished they are.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the name booby “originates from the Spanish word ‘bobo,’ which means silly or foolish. These birds tend to have a lack of regard for possible danger, making them vulnerable at times.”

Red-Footed Boobies are Just as Funny

This one was carrying a stick. Maybe nesting material?

Not to mention the Nazca Boobies

Also Nesting: a Great Frigatebird

The Chicks

Water Birds

Flamingos are found on one lagoon, far from their usual habitat throughout South and Central America.
We saw three of them while kayaking, but out of their usual locale.

The oyster catcher is a familiar bird from seashores on the East and West Coasts of the US.

Brown Pelican

Striated Heron

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron

Gulls

The Red-Billed Tropicbird

We had really wanted to see the Red-Billed Tropicbird — a new one for us.

Land Birds

A mocking bird.

Darwin observed that there were several species of mockingbirds, differing from island to island.

This is a Darwin Finch, known for its adapted beak.

The Yellow Warblers hang around the sea lions, hoping for insects that are attracted to the mammals.
It seemed a bit surprising that this familiar bird from home is also so well adapted to this strange place.

Another finch.

Galapagos Doves

We were happy to see some owls hunting on the lava beach.
This is a short-eared owl which makes itself at home in every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

We saw many other birds on the various islands we visited, and particularly enjoyed the nesting colonies where birds are incredibly tame. On our previous trip to the Galapagos, we also saw the nesting albatrosses and the mating displays of the Great Frigate birds. 

Photos © 2024 mae sander

Museum Gift Shops

The first thing I check for in a museum gift shop is Mona Lisa items.
The St.Louis Art Museum did not disappoint.

All three of these pillows are very amusing. Too bad my house is full of stuff!
Mona’s cup of coffee is for my friends at Elizabeth’s weekly tea party.

Almost all the iconic works of Great Art are in this game.
Missing: Frida Kahlo’s face, Whistler’s Mother, and Hopper’s Diner.

I’m afraid the creators of the game in fact didn’t have much imagination.

Mona Lisa often appears in gift shops on socks and on various types of jewelry and small lapel pins. I didn’t take photos of these objects this time, though the gift shop did stock them. At the moment, I own too many of these items to buy any more, unless they are truly remarkable.

Magnetic Art

After I check the Mona Lisa situation at a gift shop, then I go for the magnets. My refrigerator magnet display changes whenever I travel and get some new ones. On my trip to St.Louis, I found some nice ones at the Missouri Botanical Garden gift shop, as well as at the Art Museum. On my fridge, they join magnets from several other places. After my next trip, some major rearranging will be required!

From the Botanical Garden shop: a cardinal to go with my Costa Rica owls and hummingbird.

A magnet of the Climatron at the Botanical Gardens, an air-plant magnet, a magnet of the facade of the Art Museum, and two magnets from the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.

 

This magnet is alive!

Too many magnets.

Blog post © 2024 mae sander