Todd Klein's Blog, page 195

Getting Ready…

…for the World Series of Birding tomorrow. Among other things, I’m bringing name tags I made for everyone (I’m one of eight leaders), and of course my camera and binoculars. Shortly I’ll be getting my gear and food together and prepped. Up tomorrow morning at 3 AM, at the meeting point in Cape May at 4:45, and our Big Day begins promptly at 5. So far the weather looks good and the prospects for lots of migrating birds is promising. I’ll have the full report here Sunday. If you’d like to look at our team page, it’s HERE.

 

Birds Rare and Glorious

Images © Todd Klein except as noted.

More scouting for the World Series of Birding the last few days, and I had time and opportunity to get a few good pictures. This Black-crowned Night-Heron was in Avalon on Tuesday. They are secretive, but once you find them, they tend to sit still. It also helps that they’re pretty large. As they are night feeders, most people who live near them never see them, or even know they exist.

Cattle Egret is uncommon in our area, so the one to three individuals being seen by the roadside in Swainton are welcome additions to our scouting. This is a male in breeding plumage, that’s the orange hairdo and chest patch. They often seem to be in this location at World Series time, feeding in some long grass. Hope they stay until Saturday!

At Higbee Beach near Cape May today I saw this Least Flycatcher. There are a number of flycatchers that look very much like this, and for someone like me the best way to identify them is by their call. Least says “Che-beck.” And this one did! When they’re quiet, the best I can do is say it’s in the Empidonax family.

The best bird I saw today, perhaps the best in many years, was this Bicknell’s Thrush. It’s very rare in New Jersey, with only a few recorded sightings. They probably migrate through New Jersey, but seldom stop or are rarely seen. This one was found in Cape May Point on Tuesday, and birders quickly got the word out through the electronic grapevine. It was not real shy, and fairly easy to see once you knew the location. Many people saw it Wednesday. I didn’t have time to go to Cape May Wednesday, but I was there early this morning, and saw and heard the bird. It’s the first one I’ve ever seen, and the first new bird for my North American Life List seen in New Jersey in many years. It was kind of thrilling, as the bird was very cooperative, hopping around in good view for about 15 minutes. I heard it call, but not clearly. The call is important for identification, as it looks similar to Veery, another thrush. This is not a great picture, here’s a better one from a local birder.

Image © Tom Johnson.

What a cool find! It was discovered by another local birder, Dave Hedeen. The rest of us got to benefit from his knowledge. Often when rare birds show up around here, they come and go quickly, this one stayed a while, though the last report I heard was it hadn’t been seen since about two hours after I saw it. Sure hope it stays around and can be found Saturday by our Century Run team, but if not, there are plenty of other birds out there, and every species counts in our fundraiser.

A Little More Info on Ira Schnapp

On Alex Jay’s blog, he’s put up a post about Ira Schnapp’s High School Graduation in June, 1913. This was information that Alex and I shared some months ago, and I’d forgotten about it, so I’m glad to see his post. We were searching for the yearbook from his school for that year, and could find only the one before. Alex has posted some images and information from that yearbook which gives a general idea of the kind of classes Ira might have taken. Until Alex found this reference, we weren’t sure where he went to High School, or whether he graduated, so now that small part of Ira’s life is filled in. Thanks, Alex!

And Then I Read: UNFOLLOW #7

This issue focuses on just one of the people chosen by a dying billionaire to inherit his vast wealth. The catch is, a large target is on the backs of the 140 inheritors. Tow have already died, and many have been threatened. For each inheritor who’s eliminated, that’s more money for the rest.

Courtney is a girl who seems to have it all: beauty, money, intelligence, nerve, and social skills. Now, as one of the chosen, her father wants to hide her away from the world to protect her. Courtney wants nothing to do with her father, for good reasons, involving an infamous time in the past when she was kidnapped and held for ransom. Instead, she agrees to become the star of a new reality show, putting herself right out there in front of the world. Courtney does not seem to lack courage, or perhaps there’s another way of putting it…

Nice work by writer Rob Williams and guest artist Marguerite Sauvage.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: DR. FATE #10

Image © DC Comics.

As the new Dr. Fate attempts to free some protesters from beneath the Egyptian embassy, he’s accosted by spirit soldiers from ancient Egypt. In a most unfair twist, they can harm him, but he can’t touch them. As usual, Fate’s spirit guide, Nabu, isn’t much help, and Khalid’s handle on his new powers continues to be tenuous, but he finds a way to free the young people. Meanwhile, Khalid’s girlfriend is trying to tell him he’s about to lose his place in medical school because he’s never there, and Khalid’s parents are also wondering what’s happened to him. Dr. Fate’s new foes are soon on his trail again, and Khalid slips far back into the past to learn more about them. There’s a clue as to who’s behind it all right on the cover, if you can decipher it. Nicely done by writer Paul Levitz and artist Sonny Liew. I was also impressed with the sound effects of letterer Saida Temofonte this time, too.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: ASTRO CITY 33

Image © Juke Box Productions.

Writer Kurt Busiek, cover artist Alex Ross and interior artist Brent Anderson continue their film noir story featuring Steeljack and Cutlass, heroes past their glory days trying to unravel a mystery. Crimes are being committed using the weapons and methods of retired people like Cutlass, putting them back on the wanted list, even though they know nothing of those crimes. It’s a clever ploy masterminded by someone who knows the hero and villain community well—but who? The detective work takes them to a man who repairs broken weapons, then to a restaurant with a super-villain theme.  Great work by everyone involved, and the atmosphere on this storyline is very appealing.

Recommended.

Scouting for the World Series

This weekend has been mostly about scouting birds and locations for the World Series of Birding next Saturday. I’ve done some scouting in the past, but this year I’m doing more as I’m part of the planning committee for our team. I volunteered to do scouting for the north half of Cape May County, our territory, while Roger and Kathy Horn are doing the south half. It’s fun, though not always easy. Sometimes when you want to soar with Eagles you have to work with Turkeys…or Turkey Vultures, as above, standing in my way en route to Stipson Island yesterday. He moved aside as I approached, and I did actually see a beautiful adult Bald Eagle there.

We’re trying a very different route and game plan this year, though the final route won’t be completely decided until the day before our Big Day, and might still change on the day, depending on how things go. Jakes Landing, above, as been our traditional last stop for many years. This year we might not get to it at all.

The many Marsh Wrens there won’t miss us. And we’ll be hearing and seeing others in a different place. Much of my scouting has been in Belleplain State Forest, which is fairly close to home for me, and I know it well. It’s been interesting over the last few weeks visiting the same areas and seeing/hearing the breeding birds arrive. Acadian Flycatcher has been the most elusive. I finally heard one Saturday morning in an unexpected place. This morning there were two in the usual spots, so they probably just arrived last night.

I also did some scouting on the Atlantic side of our county at places like Shell Bay Avenue, where Ellen and I found an amazing flock of over 30 Whimbrel, a large shorebird that we usually have a hard time finding and then only a few individuals. That’s the way it goes with birding. They move around. They often aren’t where you expect them. Sometimes you get a nice surprise like this. Will they be there on May 14th, when we need to count them for our fundraising efforts? Who knows! We always miss some species we thought would be easy, but we also usually get a few nice surprises, too.

One last appeal, New Jersey Audubon’s Cape May Bird Observatory could use your help with this fundraiser. We’ll be trying to see as many different species as we can in one day. You can help by pledging any amount from 10 cents per species up. We hope to see about 130 species or so, thus a ten cent pledge would be about $13.00. Please email me (or message me on Facebook) if you can help. The birds and I would be grateful!

Pulled From My Files #39: BLACK CONDOR LOGO

Images © DC Comics.

I have very little on this logo in my files, just two marker sketches. I like the Condor silhouette on this one, but the R looks too much like a B. That could have been fixed, but Curtis King and the editor must not have liked this direction for the revamp of the 1940s character in 1992.

There must have been more sketches, but this is the other one I have. the triangle in the background is part of the character’s chest symbol. I don’t know where the idea for the rest came from.

Nor do I have a copy of the finished logo, but here it is on the first issue, and it looks like an exact tracing of the second logo sketch. Not one of my best efforts, but not bad.

And Then I Read: A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS by George R.R. Martin

Cover art by Larry Rostant.

This hardcover collects three novelettes about the hedge knight Ser Duncan taking place in the land of Westeros about 100 years before the beginning of Martin’s “Game of Thrones” saga. Dunk, as he calls himself, had been taken from the slums by an older hedge knight, Ser Arlan, as his page. Ser Arlan was well past his prime, but had plenty to teach the boy, who grew into something of a giant in his apprenticeship, nearly seven feet tall and strongly built. Size does not help one in the knightly skill of jousting, however, and when Dunk enters a tournament at Ashford Meadow, he knows he has a tough road to victory. First, he has to sell one of his two horses to get enough money to buy armor, and if he should lose, he will forfeit both armor and horse. It’s a big chance he wants to take.

Dunk is helped more than he expected by the boy Egg who attaches himself to the novice knight as his new squire. Egg is small, slim and bare-headed, but he does seem to know a great deal about knights and the landed families of Westeros. When Dunk lands in hot water at Ashford Meadows, Egg helps him find a way to escape prison and punishment through a trial by combat. And Egg turns out to be much more than the peasant boy he seems.

Two other adventures take Dunk and Egg south as hired sword to an elderly land-owner, Ser Eustace Osgrey, who is in dispute over water rights with his more powerful neighbor. Then Dunk and Egg are enticed into another tournament that is a secret gathering for a group of knights plotting against the king. All three adventures are wonderfully written. Martin seems to have absorbed medieval culture so completely he can write about it as if he lived it. More than that, Martin excels at showing what that culture could really be like when human nature found the cruel side of chivalry. This is not the uplifting tales of King Arthur I grew up on, but it’s much more real, and Dunk and Egg do find some good in the people they meet as well as bad.

I’m not too fond of the cover art seen above, but the art inside the book by my friend Gary Gianni is very much to my liking! Here’s the beautiful endpapers painting by Gary that depicts Ser Dunk’s shield much more correctly for one thing.

Throughout the book are 160 of Gary’s wonderful line drawings that are nearly as important in bringing the story and characters to life as the writing. Gary is the perfect choice for this type of story, especially after eight years on the “Prince Valiant” newspaper strip. Kudos to Martin for bringing Gianni to the project, it makes it all the more excellent.

Highly recommended!

And Then I Read: SWAMP THING #4

Image © DC Comics.

Alec Holland’s old friend Matthew Cable has returned with a way to let Alec regain his human form. To do it, Matthew and Alec will change places, making Matthew the new Swamp Thing. They accomplish this with the help of Zatanna, and a powerful magical object Matthew has discovered. The exchange is made, and at first Alec is delighted to be human again. Then he begins to see what Matthew has in mind for his role as Swamp Thing, and it’s far from benign.

Write Len Wein and artist Kelley Jones continue to entertain in this mini-series which kind of takes Swamp Thing back to simpler days and a small cast, but still delivers lots of interesting events and amazing art.

Recommended.