Further Afield

u st like clockwork, turkey vultures return to Hinckley, Ohio on precisely March 15 each and every year.And just as reliably, once a year I venture out to my garage, dust off my trusty time machine, and travel back in time at 10-year intervals to sample the Ohio birding scene of days gone by.For established Cardinal readers, the existence of my time machine should by now be a matter of unquestioning certainty and enduring doctrine.Even so, I must admit that an insignificant and presumably envious handful of crabby readers continue to deny its existence, preferring to believe that instead of using a time machine, I actually consult old ornithological journals and history books and web sites to gather my facts.But to these surly readers, and to newcomers to my columns.let me offer reassurance that the existence of my time machine is every bit as dependable and unimpeachable as the regular and punctual return of the buzzards to Hinckley.Right?Right.Good.It is always something of an adventure just to be able to reach the time machine in my garage, as another year's worth of detritus must first be cleared away to allow access.This year, and for unknown reasons, someone had piled (not one, but three!) croquet sets, a set of lawn darts (unused, and in their original box!), a fine assortment of tiki-themed citronella candles, and even one of those metallic, spheroid gazing balls, complete with pedestal , in front of or atop my precious time machine.Not to be denied, however, I overcame these indignities, brushed off the year's thickness of accumulated stray lawn clippings, sawdust, and desiccated fly carcasses, and filled 'er up with a leftover can full of Sohio's Super Cetron gasoline.So, I'm ready if you are-just remember, the first several stops may be a tad rough and uneven, as our balky conveyance gains its composure.Our first stop is ..... . Winter 1875-76Jack London, author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, is born on January 12. On January 24, Bat Masterson is badly wounded in a gunfight in Sweetwater, Texas.Competitors Elisha Gray (of Barnesville, Ohio and Oberlin College) and Alexander Graham Bell both apply for the first patents for the telephone on February 14.As usual, a fogged windshield dims our view of these early stops.Please be patient .... there, that's better.Now we can see J.M. Wheaton collecting a lapland longspur in Columbus on February 19.Wheaton doesn't know it at the time, but in the 1940s Alexander Wetmore will identify this specimen (#203070 in the U.S. National Museum) as Calcarius lapponicus alascensis, the "Alaskan Longspur," a subspecies of lapland longspur that nests in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, and normally winters in the western U.S. and Great Plains.It may still be the only record Vol. 29 No.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.