Monthly Archives: April 2007

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

I was at Ridgefield a few weeks back, hiking the Carty Unit, when I stopped to watch a small flock of chickadee-dee-dees that was working its way through the forest. I backtracked a bit to watch them as they moved from tree to tree when I heard a rustling in the leaves just off the trail.

Most likely garter snakes moving about the forest floor, I had seen half-a-dozen the week before, but today’s rustler was this turtle. It wasn’t a painted turtle, the most common turtle here, so I was excited to see it. I’m not that up on the turtles of the Northwest since you don’t see them that often, but I knew it was a species that was new to me.

And since it was new to me, I figured it was new to science as well.

Since I was the one to discover it, I would have the privilege of naming it. As with such past honors, I let Templeton and Scout each come up with a suggestion and then I choose between the two names. To avoid claims of bias, I have them submit their choices anonymously in sealed envelopes.

I learned to have the submissions anonymous the hard way. It takes a surprising amount of belly rubs and head scratches to soothe the injured psyche of my little ones.

To aid them in their naming process, I showed them the pictures I took of the turtle, including views from many angles, and described in detail the entire encounter. Templeton asked for and received some natural history books and field guides and set off to study, taking detailed notes, muttering to himself, making funny faces as he thought up ever more fanciful names.

Scout requested and received only one book, my PowerBook. She visited some natural history sites and herpetology sites and even a site called Google. Scout says it’s useful for more than just looking up turtle info, you can find local suppliers of scrod, for example, which perked up Templeton’s ears right away.

After they each did their copious research, I received two envelopes slipped under my office door. And here are the suggested names for this hitherto unknown species of turtle:

  1. Scoutasaurus
  2. Templetonodon

Good thing I kept the submission process anonymous.

I gathered the little ones together, each convinced that their name would be selected. I broke the news gently to them that while these would each be fantastic names for dinosaurs (each equally fantastic names mind you, to avoid claims of bias), it wasn’t quite right for a little turtle.

They both got a little indignant and ran back to the pictures of the turtle.

“Look at those claws, they’re enormous!”
“Look at those powerful jaws, whole cities could be destroyed!”
“Even a meteorite couldn’t penetrate that massive shell!”

I tried to explain how the close-up photos made the turtle look enormous, but in reality I could have easily picked it up in my hands, but the cats were not so easily convinced. Eventually we agreed to pick a new name, the three of us all together, and after many hours of discussion settled upon a name:

Fire-spitting Terrorpin

It’s not fire-breathing nor a terrible terrapin, but before you think less of me for allowing such a name, listen, when you’ve been discussing the name with those two for so long, they have a way of ganging up on you and after a while up is down and you’re not sure what you believe anymore.

At least we had a name.

After submitting our name to the appropriate scientific bodies, we received a rather abrupt (if not rude) reply telling us that we had not discovered a new species, just an introduced one, that someone likely dropped off their pet turtle when they got bored with it. And also that we should stop sending in silly names for creatures that we find, since they always turn out to be introduced species.

It’s true that our noxious belching frog turned out to be a bullfrog, and that our mutant space beaver turned out to be a nutria. And our polyphonic demonic blackbird turned out to be a starling.

But one of these days, we’ll be proved right, and scientists and citizens alike will have to recognize the yellow-bellied howling sasquatch for what it is: a yellow-bellied howling sasquatch.

It Worked, Grandma, It Worked

Given the sad news over the past couple of days, here’s a good memory, which I added to racphoto today.

My grandparents had a cabin next to a small lake where we’d go swimming and canoeing. One spring when I was a young boy, Grandma believed wood ducks were nesting in the box out front and thought she saw one of the parents fly up to the nest. She called me over to the table in front of the large picture window and we waited to see if it would come back out again.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

The duck never showed, but her love for them did, as did her desire to pass on that love to me.

Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech …
– Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist

There’s a reason the colors in my blog header are orange, and the headings at racphoto.com are maroon. There’s a reason my main CSS file is named hokie. That Tech adorns most of my stack of sweatshirts and my favorite ballcap.

I spent ten years in Blacksburg, starting out with a bachelor’s degree and ending up with a doctorate. I graduated ten years ago and moved to Oregon, but that little town in southwestern Virginia will always hold a warm place in my heart.

I came of age there, started my life anew there, met my wife there. Some of the hardest times in my life were spent there. Some of the best times too.

It’s taken a while for the shootings at Virginia Tech to sink in, to see tragedy and heartache in the places I spent so much time and remember so fondly. My heart goes out to those families that will go to Blacksburg this week to bury their children, and to all those who lost family and friends.

I haven’t watched a lot of the TV coverage, but from what I’ve seen the students and parents and faculty have responded with dignity and class and strength even in the face of tragedy, and I wish them all the best as they reclaim their campus and their lives in the coming months.

They Call Me Boolie, Snake-Friend

When the weather began to warm a few weeks back, the snakes began to get active again. Some of them ended up as breakfast for an American bittern, while others (such as the one pictured here) slithered across the forest floor looking for other snakes to meet and greet and possibly mate with.

Others ended up as roadkill on the refuge’s auto tour. I saw a handful that morning, mostly young snakes that hadn’t yet learned to move when they felt the rumble of a car’s approach. I came across one older snake in the road that was too happily sunning itself to move, so I decided to wait beside it until it was safely on the other side. In the meantime, it was a nice opportunity to study the snake’s beautiful patterns and colors.

To my horror, I spotted a car coming up fast behind me, much faster than people normally drive this part of the refuge (there’s usually a lot to see in this section). Since the snake was beside my car, and that was the only place for the rapidly approaching car to pass, the snake was going to get flattened.

I did the only sensible thing, which was to start the car and cut across the road, just ahead of the snake. I didn’t exactly cut the other driver off, but it was still an awfully aggressive move for a place like a wildlife refuge, but fortunately the driver stopped a bit behind my car, and thus a bit behind the snake.

We both watched the snake until it finally slithered off into the safety of the grass, and the driver then proceeded around me at a much slower place. It’s the least I could do, these little beauties helped me overcome my fear of snakes.