And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Funny! when I was a kid, I always saw this bird (all around the NY metro area) with beautiful, irridescent feathers (never noticed the blue tinge on the beak); we called them starlings. Haven't seen them in recent years; then again I've stayed away from the NY metro area for the past 30/40 years.
Yes, that is a European Starling. It's non-native to North America and out competes many of our native birds for food and habitat. There's a year-round open season on shooting them here in Michigan.
The bird graphic suggests that the bird would be a tetrachromat. Some molluscans (bivalvia in particular) may have 16 visual opsins making them 16-chromats. In humans the opsin gene is carried by the X-chromosome and in at least one documented case a mutation of one opsin gene shifted its color sensitivity peak; the other on the other X-chromosome was normal: both genes were expressed in the retinas, making the person a tetrachromat, who could see differences in shades of color imperceptible to others. And the perception of light polarization is common in mollusc, arthropoda and chordata.
Funny! when I was a kid, I always saw this bird (all around the NY metro area) with beautiful, irridescent feathers (never noticed the blue tinge on the beak); we called them starlings. Haven't seen them in recent years; then again I've stayed away from the NY metro area for the past 30/40 years.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is a European Starling. It's non-native to North America and out competes many of our native birds for food and habitat. There's a year-round open season on shooting them here in Michigan.
DeleteNow do dogs and cats!
ReplyDeleteThe bird graphic suggests that the bird would be a tetrachromat. Some molluscans (bivalvia in particular) may have 16 visual opsins making them 16-chromats. In humans the opsin gene is carried by the X-chromosome and in at least one documented case a mutation of one opsin gene shifted its color sensitivity peak; the other on the other X-chromosome was normal: both genes were expressed in the retinas, making the person a tetrachromat, who could see differences in shades of color imperceptible to others. And the perception of light polarization is common in mollusc, arthropoda and chordata.
ReplyDeletehuh?
DeleteHow come both images don't look the same to me? Am I a bird, or is it my bird brain?
ReplyDeleteMozart had one for a pet. Apparently they can sing, too.
ReplyDeleteAlso badly inaccurate.
ReplyDelete