On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 23:30:25 -0400 Karen Rhodes
 writes:
> At 08:31 AM 6/20/2003 -0500, Gumbie Tygress wrote:
> >> Maybe the same publisher that put out FLATTENED FAUNA: A Field 
> Guide 
> >> to
> >> Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways, by Roger M. 
> Knutson. 
> >
> >You know, I thumbed through that once.
> >What was saddest of all? I recognized the critters without the 
> captions.
> >Too many years on country roads, I suppose....
> 
> Heeheehee.  Too true.
> 
> >Have you seen the one with smashed fairies? Taking that theme to an 
> ever
> >grosser extreme....

It might be Brian Froud (probably Brian Froud ... or someone who's
modeled themselves on him; not Alan Lee, though, I'm pretty sure).
I mean, there are oozing bits -- e.g. the fairies have been SMASHED
between the pages of the book.

> No, haven't seen that one.  There is another hilarious field guide, 
> with
> wonderful illustrations:  A FIELD GUIDE TO LITTLE-KNOWN AND 
> SELDOM-SEEN
> BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, by Ben, Cathryn, and John Sill.  Published 
> by  Peachtree Publishers.

do tell?
Along the lines of the end piece in the Cornell Ornithology mag this
month suggesting subscription to a service that will accredit your
sightings (sight unseen)? I'll photocopy and send it -- you're a more
"scientific"/"serious" birder than I, you'll really laugh

> Then for social commentary, there's THE FIELD GUIDE TO WHITE PEOPLE, 
> by
> Stephan Dweck and Monteria Ivey.  I don't know whether the promised 
> sequel,
> THE FIELD GUIDE TO BLACK PEOPLE, is out yet.
> 
> >though you wonder some times -- a SEAgull?????? tygress
> 
> I hear ya.  We see 'em in Orange Park, which is about 45-50 miles 
> inland.
> They hang around in the K-Mart parking lot and across the street at 
> Orange
> Park high school.  Of course, Marti and Elizabeth tell us of all the 
> evil  things high schoolers thought up to do to sea gulls.  

But getting hit by a car sorta messes with.... things.
Yeah yeah I know how it happens -- but it's still, well, bordering on the
surreal

> But the funniest thing we've seen regarding sea gulls occurs every 
> evening
> around sunset at Jacksonville Naval Air Station.  There is a hangar 
> where  the P-3 aircraft (very large propeller-driven airplanes) are 

I LIKE P-3s.... =heavy overhead droning noise (memory, worked in the
flight path for Moffat NAS once)=

> serviced.
> It's very large, enough to accommodate 5 or 6 P-3s at once, and it's 
> also
> very tall.  You know, one of those buildings large enough and tall 
> enough  to have its own micro-meterological phenomena inside.  

Yes I do.
I've been in a couple -- Moffat has an old dirigible hangar, you could
fly hot air balloons in it.... (obviously, but still....)

> Well, every  evening,
> sea gulls from all over Duval County and from at least Clay County 
> if not
> ral other surrounding jurisdictions converge on this hanger at NAS 
> Jax.
>  Hundreds if not thousands of them congregate on top of this 
> building.  

Good lord.

> 
> I wouldn't want to be the junior swabbie just assigned to that 
> hanger --
> you know, the poor schmuck they send up topside to clean the roof 
> off!
> 
> Veloci--yuck--raptor

indeed!
a prayer of extra Grace for those getting such a duty, tygress

=====
If it's not one thing it's your mother. --anon
=====
We must make peace with our karma... and apparently that does not involve
hitting it with heavy objects. --Barb Jernigan

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