Star One Smart Blog's

Not much posting going on around here, given last week's personal family crisis.

That's the good thing about having a small-time blog; it's there when you are ready to use it, and can just sit when you aren't. No expectations. That, and that the topic selection is my-interest-driven; if I haven't a bit of interest in, say, Nancy Pelosi sucking up to Syria's Bashar al-Assad this week (although she did slap a little slap at 'thug' Hugo Chavez last year, for Bashing Bush, maybe for not asking her to join in, I doubt she will call Bashar a 'terr'rist supporter, while she's sleeping in his palace...) or even in Florida ripping Ohio (again, in just a few months) to take the NCAA title in BBL...(because my interest in BBL is on the same level as my interest in the Ice in Ice Hockey, or the grass fields in soccer, both just right above my interest in what's going on in the Nashville Mayor's race...)

But I saw this, this morning: A California Condor goes into Mexico, and lays an egg. Unusual, because in the '70's this ungainly carrion-eater was nearly wiped out due to people's use of guns, poison, electrical wires, etc., and hasn't been seen in Mexico since the '30's (just another migrant, looking for a better place...and can you blame him? Even the carrion in Mexico is substandard...)

from the article:

"Wallace and colleagues found the egg March 25 on a cliff in the Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park, located in the arid interior of the Baja California peninsula more than 100 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Wallace climbed to the nest and took photographs and measurements of the egg, shining a bright light through the shell to determine that the egg was 45 to 50 days old. Condor eggs incubate for 57 days, meaning the chick could hatch any day. There was also a chance the egg was dead, but Wallace said he did not smell any sulfur and the parent condors were still tending to it."

Ya think that's a clue? Don't bother the birds! I think I would have left the nest alone and unmolested, so as not to spook the things. They have a hard enough time as it is without people crawling about their nest. Unless you plan to fall off the cliff, and become carrion yourself (fast food?), then just stay away until the egg is hatched. If the species is to survive, then let it prove itself, in today's world. If not, there will be other species evolve to take it's place.

And, isn't there enough to worry about other ungainly carrion-eaters laying eggs in other countries?

;D