Even a loon family deserves to stay together. https://t.co/97L1sUCW9b h/t @MaineLisaD
— David Beard (@dabeard) August 8, 2019
Gary Bennett gently removed the 2-week-old loon from a box and cupped the chick in his gloved hands as the boat drifted Monday in the sparkling waters of Messalonskee Lake.
Then came the high-pitched cry from the baby, whom he had named Jordan. Just three days ago, Bennett, who runs Snow Pond Cruises on the 9.5-mile-long lake, had captured the chick after noticing a grape-sized tumor on its leg. An animal rehabilitation center in Freedom surgically removed the tumor and Jordan was returned with a clean bill of health.
Monday afternoon, the chick’s parents paddled near the boat and responded with a series of distinctive wails that loons are known for when searching for a mate or a baby. The eerily serene wails heralded an emotional reunion for both human and bird, as Jordan came back to the waters of the lake and back to its parents.
Bennett, 68, is a registered Maine guide and licensed commercial boat operator who has lived on the lake for 33 years and has been running Snow Pond Cruises since 2014…
The loon is known as one of Maine’s most beloved birds, with a population in steady rebound in recent years. Maine Audubon has estimated that there are some 3,200 adult loons and 400 loon chicks in the southern half of Maine, which is the part of the state covered by the annual count…
Full story and pictures at the link. Loons only hatch one or two chicks at a time, so it’s not surprising they’d be more open to reuniting with a ‘stolen’ chick than a passerine with half a dozen other offspring to protect.
Mike in NC
Berthed today in Bergen, Norway (or is that Normay, where there are supposed to be lots of desperate white people wishing to flee a Scandanavian hellhole to emigrate to the USA, despite the odds of being gunned down by a maniac?). 100% chance of moderate to heavy rain. We were told by the cruise director that Bergen averages well over 300 days of rain per year. Must be the Seattle of northern Europe.
satby
@Mike in NC: Glad you’re enjoying your trip. Hopefully that heavy rain goes through quickly and you get to see the city without getting soaked.
@AL: beautiful story about the loons! Great way to start the weekend. Even if I have to leave for work soon.
Raven
@Mike in NC: Happy Birthday! My people were from Stevanger! I’m waiting for the 5:30 Starbucks in Pigeon Forge so I can get the fuck out of here. The battle is whether to take the Parkway through the mountains in the dark or take 40 minutes longer and go via Asheville!
satby
@Raven: Won’t it be getting light in 1/2 an hour or so? Savor that coffee and take the Parkway at dawn. I loved driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, so beautiful.
OzarkHillbilly
That might be most common but not always so. Once, when I was up in Canada while guiding some guests, we came across a family of loons. 4 chicks, cute as a button little balls of brown fluff. Mama and Daddy were screaming with great urgency, literally dancing on top of the water , slapping it with their feet as the little ones desperately tried to dive and stay down, but none could manage the trick for more than 5 seconds and, “bloop,” back they’d pop up onto the surface. After a minute or 2 we backed off and the parents stopped their dance and the little ones popped up to calmly follow along behind them again.
JR
@Mike in NC: Seattle actually gets less rain than most eastern US cities. Just that the stuff is concentrated in winter/spring.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
So in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, when George relates the story of the teenager being mocked for ordering a “bergen and water” it turns out he wasn’t as far off the mark as we assumed.
;)
NotMax
Sunday is Bogart day on TCM. Highlights include:
The Big Sleep at 2 p.m.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre at 4 p.m.
The African Queen at 8 p.m.
The Caine Mutiny at 10 p.m.
Monday is Ann Sothern day. Being as long time sucker for Sothern, shall be in my happy place all day.
germy
@NotMax: Have you seen Beat The Devil?
I caught a few scenes on youtube, now I want to watch the whole movie.
Dorothy A. Winsor
What a nice story to wake up to. Live long and prosper, baby loon.
WaterGirl
Are you calling us loons?
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Sorry, I had a Cyrillic fail.
NotMax
Little pleasures. It is so nice to be back home and not have to retreat into self-exile on the balcony in order to smoke a stogie.
@NotMax
Being a, not being as.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Ummm….The Maltese Falcon? Bueller?
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Is that a translation of the Cyrillic you edited out?
mrmoshpotato
Cold? Wrap yourself in a tortilla! Burrito blanket!
NotMax
@germy
John Huston’s campy take on The Maltese Falcon. Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre and Robert Morley. What’s not to like?
Reportedly the screenplay was written on the fly by Truman Capote, sometimes pages being finished just minutes before the cameras rolled.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Not on the schedule for this Sunday. Shows up on the 28th for Mary Astor day.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
How’s your lead?
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: My husband smokes cigars — outdoors only! If I die first, he will be stinking up the house with his stogies before you can say Jack Robinson. :) I don’t mind the cigar smoke at all outside; keeps the skeeters away.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Excellent.
R-Jud
I’m on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey. There’s a fun run about to start and they’ve set the finish line up across from the Springsteen-song famous psychic Madame Marie’s stall.
Dying to ask if she knows who will win.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in NC: Spent three days in Bergen and Stavanger and driving between them last May, and had wall to wall sunshine. Everyone told us it would be raining all the time and we didn’t see a drop.
OzarkHillbilly
Walmart To Remove Violent Video Game Displays, Not Guns, From Its Stores
Ooooo… So brave, wouldn’t want to offend anybody in the wake of a series of mass shootings. Next week they’ll bring them back. The guns on the other hand, who could be offended by those?
Speaking of the gun in the Springfield Walmart, from the Guardian today:
Define, “carrying it in a threatening manner”. I guarantee, if it’s common practice in deer camp, it will be found to be not threatening. In other words, anything outside of purposely pointing the weapon at another human being will be deemed nonthreatening.
These people aren’t right.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Actually the ones I gravitate to for everyday use and pleasure are the little filtered cigars, which look like filter cigarettes but with a brown wrapper. The plain ones; no fruity flavored smokes for this geezer, thank you very much. Highly affordable to boot. Two bucks, including shipping cost, for a pack of 20 when ordered online. Do keep some classic stogies around for special occasions.
And yes, they are top notch skeeter chasers (also gnats).
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
Premier League back on my TV. Pleasant video wallpaper. Manchester City up 1-0 on West Ham United in the first half.
OzarkHillbilly
@R-Jud: You got an extra 20 bucks you don’t need?
mrmoshpotato
@R-Jud: *hands over $20*
“The purpose of the run is to have fun!”
The purpose of the pizza? Oh predictive text!
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
They will only be temporarily removed.
Thanks for the loons story!
Steeplejack
@mrmoshpotato:
Eh, they show that all the time, e.g., Monday the 26th at 8:00 p.m. EDT.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
Are you healing well?
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I once rescued a loon from a fishing net and all I got for thanx was an attempted stabbing.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Tough love in the bird world!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I know! I was like, “After all I did for you, and this is how you treat me???”
NotMax
@R-Jud
Seeing a mention of a boardwalk in New Joisey reminded me that there’s an episode of Ultimate Restorations on Prime about the humongous pipe organ in Atlantic City which I found fascinating.
Also there’s a separate documentary about the project, The Senator’s Masterpiece, which off the top of my head don’t believe is on any of the streaming services at this time.
Steeplejack
@debbie:
Yes, thanks. Soreness abating, itchiness increasing. I’ve been sticking close to home, so I have been leaving the wounds uncovered. The arm is still fugly, but less so—now possibly frightening only to sensitive souls. But I cover it when I do go out. And I’m using the sling only when I go out.
The big thing, which has surprised me, is the fatigue. I have no stamina. I feel okay, I do something normal and then feel exhausted. Someone told me the other day that could be a side effect of general anesthesia, up to two weeks after. I’m at Day 9 now.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Thanks for that. I mistyped it as the 28th above.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: Healing takes a lot of energy. Also the wounds just wear one down, they’re always a bother..
debbie
@Steeplejack:
I’m guessing you conquered the showering difficulties. Very little strengthens healing like that first shower!
Ohio Mom
@Steeplejack: Make sure you are eating lots of protein. You need it to knit yourself back together.
And Ozark is right, your body needs rest and is making sure you get it. Be easy on yourself.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
True. Energy being used for healing but not apparent.
Kay
Wal Mart can dance around with as many ridiculous fawning gestures towards Right wingers as they want. Mass slaughters in your retail outlet along with kowtowing to the .00000001 of their customers who want to parade around with assault weapons and intimidate people is bad for business.
The last existing principle on the Right- making money- and even that has to give way to fealty to the ideology. They can’t make good business decisions anymore in service sectors, because they must only serve the far Right.
Steeplejack
@debbie:
Yes, I got a plastic sleeve from Amazon that tokyokie recommended. Invaluable! Had my third (3) shower of the month yesterday. Yee-haw.
Steeplejack
@Ohio Mom:
Good point. I usually do better anyway when I have a little protein early in the day, so I think I’m okay on that point. And I’ve been napping/dozing liberally.
mere mortal
“clean bill of health”
I can’t be the only one who caught that joke, can I?
Kay
Right wingers will be limited to government contracting or back-end businesses with no public-facing side. If they’re a public-facing service business they have this …awkward issue where they loathe 80% of their customers.
rikyrah
Just saw Peanut and her grandmother off to the Bud Billiken Parade.
It’s a nice day for it????
The Bud Billiken Parade is the largest parade for African Americans in the country. Created by the Chicago Defender newspaper, it has been a celebration of Black culture, and the sendoff to school for children for over 70 years.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Also, as Goku pointed out somewhere (thread last night?), a huge percentage of video games are sold on line, so Walmart’s move is even more
toothlesscynical.JPL
@R-Jud: Are you just visiting or escaping the brexit madness?
I guess both
Miki
And then there’s the loon couple who adopted a baby duckling.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Interesting! I went to see who Bud Billiken was. Fictional character.
Also, Billikens.
Steeplejack
@JPL:
That reminds me: we need Tony Jay to weigh in on the latest developments, e.g., no election until after the Brexit deadline?
Kay
@Steeplejack:
Additional security costs money. We’re all already paying the tab for gun nuttery in public schools. Turning public schools into fortresses is expensive, and that’s just the up-front cost- the continuing cost will be re-allocating funding that went to instruction to school slaughter prevention. As if we don’t dump enough on public schools we’ve now dumped the gun problem in their lap.
All to kowtow to the 3% of people who refuse to accept ANY responsibility for their obsessive hobby.
Oh, and it also hasn’t escaped my attention that all these security companies are run by Right wingers. The more dangerous it gets, the better they do.
Steeplejack
@Miki:
Aww.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
One of the researchers said “video games have as a close a connection to violent acts as bananas do”. As trench coats do. Why only video games, anyway? If you’re going to make this up don’t you have to include violent movies and tv shows?
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Dollars to doughnuts (pounds to pasties?) the deadline will be pushed back yet again.
NotMax
@Kay
And songs. Or is that a Dem thing because Tipper Gore?
;)
R-Jud
@JPL: Visiting family for the week. My Dad’s people are from around these parts (Mom’s were from slightly further north near Sandy Hook). Then back to PA, then to Boston, then eventually home.
My 40th birthday is the day after the current Brexit deadline. Could be quite the party.
sixthdoctor
ABC news is reporting Jeffrey Epstein killed himself last night.
Kay
@NotMax:
We’d really have to ban the publishing or reading of far Right opinion on the internet because that’s what they’re reading.
Eventually this comes down to a battle between the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, and I know which one the far Right will choose.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I’m betting not. The more I see the more I think Boris is preparing for the Kamikaze dive into Brexit. He knows he’ll lose the election. That’s why he wants to schedule it for after Oct 31 because getting Brexit is all he cares about.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
This situation is driving me nuts. My RWNJ brother, the one in Las Vegas, is a bona fide gun nut (of course), and this situation has caused an uptick in his pathetic Facebook forwards of gun-nuttery chaff, e.g., “We don’t blame cars for the people they kill every year,” etc.
Fine. Let’s have mandatory training and a test to get a license for a gun, and then let’s have mandatory insurance for any damage your guns might
causebe incidentally involved in. Also, I don’t see people driving Formula 1 race cars around town.Quinerly
Epstein dead by suicide.
guachi
Great job, law enforcement, letting your prisoner kill himself.
Quinerly
https://nypost.com/2019/08/10/convicted-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-dead/
Steeplejack
@sixthdoctor:
Holy shnikeys! Let the conspiracy theories begin.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: And he said?
@Quinerly: Funny, wasn’t he on suicide watch?
Ken
@guachi: Just doing what they’re paid for?
schrodingers_cat
@OzarkHillbilly: It does seem very Putinesque.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: I guess it meant they watched him commit suicide.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Unless I’m greatly mistaken, this removes any restrictions on release of evidence. Legally, the dead cannot be defamed.
Legal jackals, please pipe up.
Belafon
@Steeplejack: we don’t blame the cars because cars have been designed to carry people from point a to point b. Had we designed cars for the purpose of making sure other people can’t get to where they want to go, they would be regulated and there would probably be calls to ban them.
Keith P.
@Quinerly: Heckuva suicide watch he was on. “Hey, look, Epstein committed suicide!”
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Crickets.
Gvg
Hmm, does this mean since no trial, less info will get public? Epstein is no loss to humanity, but his friends and enablers might have had a lot to lose in a public lurid trial. I think a trial would have been better.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I heard a rumor that Cyrillic worked again on the current BJ, and I was testing it out. Once I had the answer, the Cyrillic had served its purpose so I replaced it with (totally unrelated) words in English.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
ETA: Also, registration for every gun you own. (Of course my brother has . . . uh, when does several become many?)
Quinerly
@Keith P.: my initial thoughts.
JPL
@Quinerly: Apparently so.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Suicide by polonium.
Quinerly
New Epstein thread up
Gvg
@Belafon: actually we do blame cars that turn out to be death traps….see pintos and gremlins and others. Prius price dropped because they stopped selling during what turned out to be over hyped brakes that wouldn’t stop stories a few years ago. When a car model kills people, they stop buying it instead of rushing out to get it before it’s banned. These nuts are a cult. Including my uncle….
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Looks safe to me. Thanks to one and all.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Belafon: Car safety has been regulated for years, everything from side beams to seat belts. Each small change added up to much safer cars.
opiejeanne
@Belafon: Have you ever driven the 405 during rush hour in Southern California?
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: Ah yes, the last refuge of the illogical.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I have copied and pasted it before for purposes of snark, which is about the only thing I can think of it might be good for. ;-).
Steeplejack
@Baud:
“Hey, he asked for a cup of tea. What could go wrong?”
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
My first thought too. Bet there’s a GOPer or two of high standing who longer need to be twitchy.
tokyokie
@NotMax: I’ve heard also that Capote was writing the screenplay on the fly. Unfortunately, Bogart had money invested in the picture, and was very displeased at Huston’s cavalier methods, and they never worked together again. (Bogart probably also had some lingering resentment over Huston’s cajoling him and Lauren Bacall into joining the spectacularly ineffective anti-McCarthy group, the Committee for the First Amendment.) Anyway, because whoever owned the film’s copyright failed to renew it, the film has fallen into public domain and finding a copy that’s in good condition can be difficult. And I always thought that Robert Morley pretty much stole the picture, as he was wont to do.
chopper
@JR:
or this morning, apparently. good thing i brought stuff in from the porch.