Not to be confused with the Orange-fronted Parakeet, a species in Central America, the Peach-fronted Parakeet is a found in the savannah and cerrado of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay and possibly still in to Argentina. There are no subspecies. It has a peachy orange forehead and midcrown; a pale orange orbital ring; dull blue wings,…
The late Senator Everett Dirksen (1896–1969) is usually (mis)credited with saying of the federal budget, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it begins to add up to real money.” There’s no evidence he actually said it, let alone said it first. But the quote comes to mind in the face of a recent…
Alaskana / Commentary / Law
Readers will recall that a BUCIP – pronounced “bew-kip” – is WC’s invention, an acronym for Big, Ugly, Complicated, Intractable Problem. Alaska has more than its share of BUCIPs and, in the past, WC has asked an unreasonable amount of readers’ time to explain what a mess they are. It’s time for an update on…
Old World Sparrows are only distantly related to the more familiar (and unfamiliar) New World Sparrows. Old World Sparrows are the Passeridae, 8 genera and 43 species. New World sparrows are the Passerellidae, 30 genera and 138 species. Even more confusingly, the Old World also offers Sparrow-Larks, Bush-Sparrows and Sparrow-Weavers, as well as Sparrowhawks (which…
One of the questions WC is asked most often is, “What’s the most beautiful bird you’ve photographed” It’s an easy one to answer: for WC, it’s the Resplendent Quetzal. No less an authority than the pioneer of Neotropical ornithology, Alexander Skutch, wrote, A supremely lovely bird; the most beautiful, all things considered, that I have…
WC Is not so old that he cannot remember being a boy. Here’s a poem about boys. There are some British-isms in the poem that jar, but the essence is clear and accurate. McNish won the won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry in 2017. Her work is a bit controversial, in…
Most geologists would bet that the long, northerly running strait – a combination of Chatham Strait and Lynn Canal, smack in the middle of this map – followed the trace of an active fault. After all, the Pacific Plate, on the left side of the map, is sliding northwesterly in relation to the North America…
The 25th parrot species to feature in Return of Bird of the Week is the Yellow-chevroned Parakeet, Brotogeris chiriri, native to most of Brazil and parts of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. The common name “parakeet” has no scientific meaning. While parakeets are generally smaller and have longer tails than most parrots, there are too many…
It was just about 60 years ago today, as far as WC can reconstruct it, that WC first read This Is the American Earth, by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall. The book had been published back in 1960, and it was gifted to WC for Christmas in 1965. It was the first time WC had…
WC likes Ethan Berkowitz. He’s a nice guy, was a decent mayor for the Municipality of Anchorage and has had some pretty good ideas from time to time. But his recent opinion post in the Anchorage Daily News is so bone-headedly wrong that WC has to wonder who actually wrote it. Berkowitz proposes that Alaska…
WC’s classical literature professor and mentor, Dominic A. LaRusso, held that the three greatest men in Western Civilization were Marcus Tullius Cicero, Dante Alighieri and Leonardo Da Vinci. It was only natural, LaRusso (a second generation Sicilian) would say, that all three were Italian. When LaRusso learned that WC was an avowed atheist, LaRusso assigned…
The unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service, inscribed in stone over the entrance to the James A. Farley Post Office Building in New York City says, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The phrase originates from a passage in…
For the first poem of the New Year, W.C. reaches back to WC’s Prof. Marliss Strange’s favorite poet ever. W.H. Auden (1907-1973) wrote a moderately long poem, “All I have is a voice,” that touches on much of what WC thinks is wrong with American culture – some of which is unfortunately infecting much of…
WC’s first dreadful pun of 2026. It can only get better from here, right? Apart from an earlier hat tip to Rudyard Kipling, WC has neglected the carrion-eating birds of East Africa. That’s not right. Equal time for scavengers! At least feathered scavengers. WC will start by noting that a lot of bird species you…
We’re still working through the Psittacidae, the parrot species WC has photographed. As just one of the challenges involved in discussing this family of birds, the taxonomy and systematics of many species is unsettled. For example when these photos were taken, this was the Mealy Parrot. Now it’s the Mealy Amazon. The Mealy Amazon is…
President Felon has accused the Smithsonian Institution of focusing too much on “how bad slavery was”. The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. This Country…
The Alaska Department of Law, the agency Alaska Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox has been appointed (but not yet confirmed) to run, faces some extremely serious problems. To name just one, Justine Paul sat in jail for seven years, accused of a crime he almost certainly did not commit, based on evidence that law enforcement –…
North America has just four species of Cuckoo; there are 156 species worldwide of the cosmopolitan family Cuculidae. East Africa alone boasts more than a dozen. WC was able to photograph a few. Most but not all Cuckoos are brood parasites. Like the better known Brown-headed Cowbird, Cuckoos lay their eggs in another species’ nest…
Alaskans know about isostatic rebound. That’s when land rises when the glacial ice piled on the land melts. Continental crust is lighter than the upper mantle and floats on it (for a given definition of “float”). Reduce the weight of ice and the crust rises, roughly like a boat does when you throw stuff overboard.…
The otherwise sensible folks in Wisconsin gave Ron Johnson (R, Conspiracy Theories) another term as one of their U.S. Senators, albeit by a narrow margin (50.4% to Johnson Barnes 49.6%). And Senator Johnson has rewarded his voters by indulging himself in ever more bizarre conspiracy theories and anti-science screeds. Johnson had previously promoted disproven treatments for…
WC’s computer work station looks out over his suburban backyard. As WC writes this blog post, it’s 23° F outside. early on a lovely, sunny morning. An Anna’s Hummingbird, an unlikely winter bird in the Intermountain West, is perched on top of a shrub, defending WC’s hummingbird feeder from other hummers. The range expansion of…
The Blue-headed Parrot is among the most widely distributed parrot species in the Neotropics. It range extends from western Nicaragua to the Amazon Basin, including portions of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia below 1,400 meters altitude. The striking blue head makes the species unmistakable. The intensity of the blue color and its extent varies between the…
What passes for regularly scheduled content here at Wickersham’s Conscience has pushed this “end of the month” post into the New Year. But, late or not, it’s time for the monthly look back at earlier posts, followups, stuff that didn’t make the cut and whatever else triggered the Magpie Principle in the dregs of the…
WC will close 2025 and welcome 2026 as he always does, with the full text of Robert Burns’ classic poem, usually drunkenly sung to an ancient Scottish folk tune of unknown provenance. Translation from the Gaelic is left as an exercise for the reader.Should auld acquaintance be forgotAnd never brought to mind?Should auld acquaintance be…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This is the final blog post in that annual tradition. Despite the abject failures of his wishes for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023,…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This is the fifth blog post in that annual tradition. The 2020s have been quite the decade so far. No matter what insanity…
A breath of poetry in the cold clammy stream of year end posts. And a double post as a result. e e cummings, for whom punctuation and capitalization were optional, died in 1962, but his poetry still resonates today. WC doesn’t want to be buried, but if he was, the headstone would say, “may my…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This is the fourth blog post in that annual tradition. This year’s Wickersham’s Conscience Person of the Year will be controversial. WC has…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This blog post is firmly in that tradition: a look back at the political kidney stone that was 2025 and a shuddering look…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This blog post is firmly in that tradition: a look back at the kidney stone that was 2025 and a look forward to…
In what passes for tradition here at Wickersham’s Conscience, we spend the last week of each year thinking about the year that is ending, and making our wishes for the coming year. This blog post is firmly in that tradition: a look back at yet another kidney stone of a year and a look forward…
From our house to yours, Merry Christmas. May your holidays be bright.
While Harrison Boulevard, here in Boise’s North End, is justly famed for its Hallowe’en yard decorations, the Christmas yard decorations are pretty impressive, too. While most of them are inflatables, a few are not. Those folks must rent a storage unit – and not a small one, either – to hold their seasonal yard decorations.…
WC is an artificial intelligence (AI) skeptic. In those areas where WC has a modicum of expertise, AI products are worthless or even dangerous. “Hallucinations” – lies – in legal pleadings, gross errors in geologic analyses, pure nonsense in environmental impact statements; AI is oversold and in many cases appalling wrong. What WC has read…
The late Chuck Kramer wrote this and read it on NPR’s Morning Edition for something like 20 years. He updated the free verse poem from time to time – this is the 2011 version – but the message never changed. As we approach Christmas, it remains an amazing, appalling litany of exactly what we have…
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