Tag Archives: CNN

How Avocets Drink

Posted on by

2016-06-02HowAvocetsDrink2654

*The Institute just got word that were Avocets up at Hutton Lake in Wyoming and they were drinking. Now to most of you this is a so what, snore, yeah, kind of thing but to us it’s a really big deal. We have an entire department devoted to all things birds. How they work, what their middle names are, can you eat them, what makes them different from Homo sapiens or web-footed ungulates. Anything and everything birds. We’re like the CNN of this stuff.

Our bird or Ornithology department was busy when the information came in about the Avocets drinking. We had them out near our final perimeter fence installing those new ultra-powerful hydrofracting transformers to run the 880 amp tri-ithulim fencing we installed to keep trespassers out of the sensitive areas we have over there. That’s why we had to send a cobbled together team made up of one of our cooks, the guy that passes out the shovels and hoes to the interns as they go to work in the morning, our senior cartologist as he’s the only one of the bunch that can string two sentences together and our staff photographer.

Our staff photographer is the one that made it possible to understand how the Avocet’s manage to drink. Unbeknownst to us he had developed, completely on his own, an App-like device that can be retrofitted on digital cameras called the SloMoStill. This is a revolutionary device that can be coupled to a camera with large fat rubber bands and duck tape and with the additional software provided cause light to slowdown as it passes through the camera’s lens, thereby stopping the action in the shot so it can be recorded on the sensor. You can see that at work as you look at the water droplets suspended in air in the image above. See they’re not falling back into the water as gravity demands. Genius. Because of the new ability this invention provides us we can now see in perfect clarity how Avocets drink.

Look at that long recurved bill. That is not a straw. The end of its beak is way out in front of where its mouth is, so the Avocet when it wants to drink has to stuff its whole head and mouth underwater to accomplish this, thereby risking drowning or being pounced on by a predator that does not have its head stuck underwater, or so we thought. But because the new SloMoStill camera App was at work our crack photographer has proven this is wrong. Instead we can see that the Avocet does not stick its whole head in the water and risk getting it in its nairs (bird nostrils) making it cough and/or choke in an embarrassing manner. What it does instead is smack the water’s surface smartly with that long thin beak and as the drops of water rebound into the air, grabs them one at a time to let them roll back into the Avocets mouth. If you look closely you can see a drop of water in the Avocets bill in preparation of being swallowed. Pretty darn clever, eh.

There you have it, another mystery solved by the scientific folks at The Institute. A few short minutes ago you didn’t have a clue as to how an Avocet drank. Now you know it all. Go ahead share it at the water cooler, astound your friends with bird lore that they never thought you knew anything about. Be the envy of the Animal channel watchers as they will never see anything like this there. And it’s all free for the reading. Pass that on to your friends too. Check out *The Institute at BigShotsNow.com and be smarter than everyone else. It’s an American thing to do.

*Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled “The Institute” on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

Cinco de Mayo

Posted on by

ChrisCincodeMayo

There was an article on one of the news outfits on the Internet, CNN or MSNBC I don’t remember which, asking “Why do we celebrate Cinco de Mayo”. I was surprised by this as the answer has always been “because it’s Chris’s birthday.” This is so simple a problem to answer I couldn’t believe it warranted an entire article on a national news service, all they had to do was give me a call and I could have told them saving a lot of angst on their part.

As one of Chris’s parents I was always mildly surprised that an entire country chose to celebrate Chris’s birthday. I  noticed that shortly after he was born Mexico began celebrating Chris’s birthday. I was a little surprised that they chose to call it Cinco de Mayo instead of Chris’s Birthday Day, but then I thought that his being born was so great that celebrating the day was an even neater way to celebrate it rather than calling it Chris’s Birthday day. I realize he is a special person but a whole country stopping in their tracks, not to mention other folks around the world joining in to celebrate his birthday for an entire day, well you have to admit, that is pretty cool.

 It shouldn’t be that unusual though, Chris always has been a special person doing exceptional things even as a young person. Here he is shown after a hard day working on the railroad. He was instrumental in completing the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacifico railway, a rail line known for its dangerous tunnels and high trestles that span 1000′ deep ravines. That was an amazing feat for someone as young as Chris, but was it enough to get an entire nation to celebrate his birthday. We think so. When we look back at those days now and ask Chris what he thought about it, all he can say is “Boy o Boy O Boy that was some crazy stuff” in his usual modest way.

So there you have it. We celebrate Cinco de Mayo day because it is Chris’s birthday. That’s it. Short and sweet. Happy Birthday son. I love you.

A Murmuration

Posted on by

Murmuration0512

Lately there has been an explosion of news on the major networks, NBC and CNN to name just two, about murmurations. Well two rather small announcements actually, one very visible and the other I sort of had to hunt around for. But when was the last time you heard anything about murmurations at all. Been a donkey’s age hasn’t it. One murmuration was in Israel and the other was in England, where they go absolutely nuts about anything birds do.

So what is a murmuration you might ask, well according to Wiktionary it is as follows,

murmuration (plural murmurations)

  1. An act or instance of murmuring. (I know, that really helps doesn’t it.)
  2. A flock of Starlings.

What it appears to be in real life, is a huge flock of birds, usually starlings but can be other kinds too. This flock photographed at Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge, is made up of mostly red-winged blackbirds. They gather together in extra-humongous numbers that apparently makes them kind of nuts or something, as they will all take off and fly around aimlessly but enthusiastically, until one of them decides to land, then they all land at once and make noise. This is repeated endlessly.

There are supposedly many scientific studies that explains why they do this. Money has been spent and mans hours accrued by these scientists watching these birds to figure this stuff out. They say that they have figured out why there is this nutso behavior and have published their findings in some awfully prestigious publications. I looked at one and all I can say is it made my brain hurt, your mileage may vary. If you really have to know what they said, Google murmuration – expensive scientific studies, and it’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know.

Of course our scientific community here at *The Institute has already figured this all out and we didn’t bill the government doodley-squat in American dollars. We sent a team out to look at them, those red-winged blackbirds, take some pictures, kind a talk amongst themselves for a while, go to lunch, take a short nap after lunch, come back out, check them out one more time and come home. Total cost about 12 bucks for hamburgers at McDonald’s, which we fronted out of our own pockets thank you very much.

 Our conclusions were a little different from the scientific types and as we chose to use American, as spoken by everybody on TV as our language, this makes our report a little simpler to understand. Here it is in a nutshell.

These birds are not your average run of the mill dummies. Yeah some of them may look goofy but they’re not. They learn by watching and when they see one of their neighbors grab a seed out of the dirt or find a worm or something they pay attention. They are also greedy by nature and want that worm or seed for themselves so they go right over there and try to take it away from that guy. All of these birds in one place at once, squabbling over a bug causes a commotion, and some of the other birds and it only takes one, freak, jump up into the air and that tears it. Now they all jump into the air and being paranoid figure that the other guy knows where the better food is and they are not going to let him out of their sight for a second.

Hence the flying around in perfect unison. They pack so tightly together that nobody in the middle can even see anything so the guy on the bottom of that murmuration gets a chance to see something, like a juicy bug down there in the weeds, and goes for it. When that happens the result is everybody dives for the ground and you get ‘murmuration’. One of our observers came up with the thought that they fly so close together because they totally believe the guy next to him knows where he’s going, when the truth is not one of all those birds, and we’re talking like, thousands, have a clue. Yes, it creates pretty patterns in the sky but it is not a display of higher intelligence.

Murmuration0542

Murmuration is said to be derived from an old English word or medieval Latin, ‘murmuratio’, the meaning of which supposedly sounds like the murmuring of a crowd from the sound the huge flocks of starlings make as they form at dusk, back then when it was medieval. Well it does if the crowd is making a screechy, raspy, squawky noise similar to fingernails on a blackboard and you have a hangover. But since this word ‘murmuratio’ comes from old English who even back then really liked all things birds, they probably thought it sounded beautiful. To each his own. Just remember these English guys medieval or not, like warm beer and eggs fried to the point of incineration. Just sayin’.

Murmuration is a world-wide event that the media is trying to play up as a special thing that only happens in exotic places like Europe and the Middle east but nothing could be further from the truth. We’re having murmurations all over the place right here in the USA. This one was in New Mexico, we saw one up in Wyoming of Franklin gulls visiting for  a day that put on a great show, and that was just a bird squawk above the state line from Colorado.

I hope we’ve taken some of the mystery out of Murmurations and helped you to understand one of Nature’s little quirks before you get led astray by expensive and some say unreliable studies even if they get on TV. As always if you have any questions about this subject or anything else for that matter, call us, drop us a line, we’re from The Institute and we’re here to help.

*Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Never mind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Going To Check The Mail

Posted on by

MV2910

We all have our morning routines. Sometimes it’s just opening the front door and picking up the newspaper, or walking out to the curb to see if the mails come yet. Some of us have to make the arduous trek down three flights of stairs balancing a steaming hot cup of tea to the office to check the messages that may have come in overnight. Or you might turn on the TV to catch CNN to see what major catastrophe has caught the world unaware while you were sleeping. Whatever it is it’s a good bet you do it every single morning.

Others less fortunate than us, who live in a different place, like maybe Monument Valley, have an entirely different routine. They might have gotten up with the sun and dressed quickly because it is cold here in the morning in this open place, after all the deep blue starlight has been falling on this land all night long and that makes the ground very cold. Hurrying to miss the morning rush hour they have to go out and catch their ride for the morning commute. Luckily traffic is light this morning so that’s a good start to the day.

It’s a couple of miles down to the road from the house, then 17 miles to the front gate out on hwy 163 where the mailboxes are. Before they put the boxes in they would have had to travel an extra 22 miles to Kayenta to get to the Post Office. There had better be at least a Sears catalog in there to make the trip worth while. By then it would almost be breakfast time and a stop at the Blue Coffee Pot restaurant for some frybread and coffee would be in order. Now since things have gotten fancy everywhere they can go to Burger King for a Sausage Breakfast Burrito, or even a Croisanwhich if they’re more adventurous. But when the fun was over they had the return trip back home to look at.

That usually took up most of the morning and after turning Roy out into the corral they still had sheep to shear, horses to brand, goats to milk, Hogan’s to repair, tourists to look at, the catalog to read and all kinds of other everyday stuff to do. Just speaking Navajo all day long is a chore. Just try saying ” Tó Dínéeshzheeʼ “ which is Dineh for Kayenta a couple of dozen times and you’ll see what I mean.

And of course their biggest and most important job was Scenery Inspection, making sure that nothing had changed overnight. That all the buttes and mesas and wide open spaces were still exactly where they were supposed to be. Nothing out-of-place and all is still right with the world, at least as far as The People see it.

I’m beginning to think my morning routine and my whole day for that matter, needs a little perking up. How about you, are you satisfied with your day.

A Tree Grows In Wyoming

Posted on by

TreeGrowsWyoming5201

It was early in the morning Saturday when I got the call. I had just sat down to do some serious blog writing when the sound of my ringtone “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” blared through the office thoroughly erasing the story from my mind I had intended to write . As you know this is a song by Iron Butterfly from their 1968 album “Songs My Mother Sang To Me” and I chose it because it is seventeen minutes long which gives me plenty of time to decide if I want to answer it or not.

“This had better be good, dogbreath.” I said into the phone. My caller, a spotter I used periodically to notify me if she found anything interesting was too excited to catch my tone and went on breathlessly. “Boss, I found it! I found the tree that grows in Wyoming.”

“Bull Dimples!” I yelled back at her. “You called me at 4:15 in the morning to feed me crap like this?” She never missed a beat and went on to tell me that as she drove along one of the back roads near the Colorado border there it was. The tree.

For years there have been rumors of a tree actually growing in Wyoming. Thousands have sought it out. Whole fortunes have been lost looking for it. Reputations have been ruined and lives wrecked searching for the tree that grows in Wyoming. And now my spotter says she found it. I was skeptical. It wasn’t until she sent me a grainy out of focus image from her BlackBerry that I began to think may be she had found it. If so I needed to be up there and get proper proof before we announced it to the world. The risk of ridicule was too great to mishandle this. I got what details she could give me, told her we’d talk about compensation if the story proved out and immediately began plans to leave.

For the record there are trees in Wyoming but they’re mainly restricted to the western part of the state and found up on the sides of mountains where they’re difficult to get at unless you’re like, a mountain goat or something. What we’re talking about here are trees on the plains of Wyoming. There aren’t any. And as Wyoming is 740% plains that’s a lot of no trees. The natives living here will tell you that isn’t so but tall bushes are not trees and don’t count. So finding that tree is a really big deal. Just think of the tourist dollars that would add to the state’s coffers. The person that brings this discovery to the world will be the next face on Mt. Rushmore even if that is in South Dakota.

I needed to plan my strategy carefully. I decided the best plan would be to ease up on it, kind of like you do at a single’s bar where there is real danger in spooking it off if your approach is too straight forward. I took the southern route leaving the Institute and heading west on Hwy 14 up the Poudre canyon, following the Cache La Poudre river, passing through the small towns of Spencer heights, Gould, and Walden, where I picked Hwy 40 towards Steamboat Springs and on to Craig, Colorado.

I wanted to immediately drive up Hwy 13 into Wyoming. I felt the excitement building, I was closing in on my quarry and hopefully I would soon approach it. However the Bokeh Maru was somewhat fatigued from the altitude change and needed to rest. Craig was a good place for that. In the morning we would take Hwy 70 in Wyoming and begin our stalk. I hoped beyond hope that no one had tipped the tree off and this would not become another hopeless quest. It was a difficult night for me with our quarry so close. The Bokeh Maru slept like a baby. It was like she wasn’t even aware of the importance of our mission.

The next day, after filling the Bokeh Maru’s tanks, we left and picked up Wyoming Hwy 70 which led us to Hwy 130 where we could almost smell that tree. All we had to do was climb Battle pass, snake down the switchbacks until we overlooked Centennial, Wyoming and then if our spotters directions were correct we’d be on that tree before it could shake its little branches and scamper back to its hiding place. That was not going to happen today. Not on my watch.

As you drop down the long sloping highway above Centennial you can see forever. They call it the Laramie plains and for every mile you can think of, there are long rolling hills covered with golden grass waving in the wind. I was thankful for the wind today, as it seldom blows in Wyoming, to cover the sound of the Bokeh Maru as we crept up over the last hill. Being Labor day and a holiday there were practically no cars on the road. Everyone must have been at labor because we alone on the highway as I cut the engine and coasted up to where the tree had last been reported and there it was. The tree at last. That lone green sentinel in a sea of golden grass. I was stunned to my core. I had found it at last.

I immediately took its picture, in fact I took two in case I lost one and then ran up to it and drove a stake through one of its roots pinning it to the ground. This was done in a humane way using recycled stakes and an OSHA approved hammer. This tree was not going to disappear before I could get my image published and the proper officials notified and begin the process of raking in the dough. The only worry that I had as I triumphantly returned to The Institute was that the wind didn’t blow the stake out of the ground and release the tree. There was little chance of that however, because as I mentioned before, the wind rarely blows in Wyoming and then it’s usually just a gentle little zephyr to cool off a hot day.

I couldn’t wait, I had to show you my loyal readers, the picture of the only tree in Wyoming before you saw it on CNN. My meeting with all the most important officials of the State of Wyoming is set for this Thursday and I’ve told them to bring their checkbooks. Now if I can just get an up to date weather report to make sure it’s going to be a calm sunny day I’ll be able  to sleep tonight. I can’t wait to be rich.