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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| I'm back from my trip to NYC. Gotta say, the skyline still doesn't look right to me without the Twin Towers. Speaking of places that are no longer there, here's a list from Mental Floss: Not even a compass, no, but those of us who read science fiction and fantasy are used to traveling to places that don't exist. At least in imagination. There are places that are hard to get to, places that are less explored than others, and places you’re forbidden from visiting... One of my other perennial sources, Atlas Obscura, is pretty good at the "hard to get to" and "less explored" places. As for "forbidden," sometimes I want to visit anyway, but I'm not bold or sneaky enough to do so. ...and then there are places that you might want to go to, but they no longer exist. From land masses wiped out by changing climates to waterfalls erased by human action, here are 10 spots you won’t be able to put on your vacation bucket list. I've used the term "bucket list" unironically before, so I don't have an inherent aversion to the term, but I'm not sure it's necessary here. I also have a "fuck-it list" for places that I intend to go if/when the mood strikes. Now, I should note two things before continuing: 1) There's a YouTube video embedded in the article. I didn't watch it. I'd rather read than watch. But it's there if you feel differently; it appears to cover the same topic. 2) There are also helpful pictures in the article, which I won't reproduce here. So I'm just going to highlight a few I have something to comment on. 2. The Pink and White Terraces New Zealand was once home to what was widely called the Eighth Wonder of the World: the Pink and White Terraces. I'd like to give them credit for the name. But I can't. It's descriptive and all, but if you're not going to use the native name for a thing, at least come up with something more creative. I'd probably have called them the Hello Kitty terraces, but these days, maybe the Barbie terraces. The Māori had long valued the Pink and White Terraces; they viewed them as taonga, meaning “a treasure.” Which still doesn't tell me what the Māori actually called them. Wikipedia  did, though: Te Otukapuarangi or Te Tarata.Until 1886, that is. On June 10 of that year, Mount Tarawera erupted. A brief search didn't verify this, but at least that volcano name seems to be partly Māori. But my main point here is that it's not always humans at fault for making places disappear; geology does a good job of that by itself. 3. Rungholt There was once an island named Strand off the northwestern coast of what’s now northern Germany. In January of 1362, a cyclone known as the Grote Mandrenke, or “Great Drowning of Men,” caused a storm surge that wiped parts of the island off the map. With them went the medieval town of Rungholt. For centuries after Rungholt’s disappearance, people spoke of it as if it were a mythical lost city (its remains may have been found in 2023). It is possible that several "mythical lost cities" had their origin in real cities wiped out by natural disasters. 4. East Island People aren’t the only ones who suffer when islands disappear. After a 2018 hurricane, East Island—part of the French Frigate Shoals of the Hawaiian Islands—was swallowed by the sea. I used to be under the impression that hurricanes were Atlantic and, if a tropical cyclone formed elsewhere, it was called something else, like a typhoon. Turns out "hurricane" is apparently the right nomenclature for Hawai'i (central Pacific) as well. And the northeastern Pacific. 5. Doggerland Doggerland was a large swath of land that once connected Great Britain to continental Europe. I've been wondering about that place since I first heard of it. Is it the origin of some flood myths? Has anyone done underwater archaeology there? (Turns out the answer to the second question is yes.) 9. Old Man of the Mountain For centuries, an old man’s face loomed over New Hampshire, peering out from the side of Cannon Mountain. The Indigenous Abenaki called him “Stone Face,” while the white settlers referred to him as the “Old Man of the Mountain.” Except it wasn’t an old man at all: It was a rock. Well, at least this one lists the Native name. Or a translation of it. Anyway, I remember when it crumbled. Not that I was there, but it was all over the news in 2003, a stark reminder that everything is ultimately ephemeral. That, I say, is how we know it's real. 10. Nuna Supermountains The Nuna supermountains stretched across an entire supercontinent and formed roughly 2 billion years ago. That one, I don't remember. I was too young. Have you been somewhere that no longer exists? I'd bet you have. For me, the WTC towers (as mentioned way up at the top here) is a notable example, but there are also some bars I used to go to that I dearly miss. |
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