Although sometimes I never get back to things I say I’m going to get back to, there is almost always a good reason for this. Usually the reason is that I can’t find anything else that sheds light on the matter. But I never forget the loose ends and try to wait patiently for answers to bubble up on their own.
Tuesday afternoon I accidentally found something that I’ve been hoping for for years: original images of the bird invasion of the ’70s to early ’80s. They are negatives (hard to see without a light box!) and naturally they were in an unexpected but still logical place: a photo file filled with pictures of trees. Indeed, much of what you can see on the strips with a quick squint looks like this:
One evening around dusk someone went over to the space in front of Hamman Hall and took shots of the grackles moving in from what seems to be the northwest:
These are the first pictures of this we’ve ever found. It’s strange to me that something as big as the grackle infestation has left behind so little evidence but there you have it. Grackles are predictable, humans less so.
Bonus:
