B R I G H T I D E A
love
dad
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Bird
C O N D O R
The California Condor, above, rely on their exceptional
vision to find an animal carcass. It has a very poor
sense of smell, unlike its cousin, the Turkey Vulture.
Vultures have both excellent vision as well as the
ability to smell decaying flesh up to twelve miles away.
The condor keeps tabs on the vultures in the area
and is tipped off by their behavior when they pick up
the scent of a carcass. The condor will follow their
descent to the food below and insist on its share
of the find.
B E A K
Every bird species has a beak shaped to best suit its diet.
A bird with a bill to crack nuts is going to have a beak
that crushes like a pair of pliers while an eagle or hawk
has a sharp, hooked beak that cuts and shreds food
into fork and knife-sized bites. A nectar feeder has a
bill shaped like a straw.
The shape of a bird's bill reveals the animal's lifestyle.
B L I N K
You are busy flying here and there when, suddenly,
something flies into your eye. You have no hands
to rub your eye and you cannot afford to fly blinded,
even for a moment. What you need is a see-through
eyelid that will not only sweep aside bothersome debris
but will also provide for your everyday blinking needs.
Your normal, outermost eyelid is used only to
lower the blinds for sleeping.
C H I C K S
Naked young ones in their nest, blind and helpless.
They know just enough to open their mouths wide
when a parent hops onto the rim of the nest.
Dinnertime. It takes about a month of intense,
parental care before these nestlings become
somewhat independent. These are songbirds.
They nest in trees, safe from the grasp of many
predators that roam the ground below.
The nest of a duck hugs the ground.
Same with geese and chickens.
Their young ones are covered in down feathers
the moment they hatch. Their eyes work fine
and they can run about almost from the moment
they break free of their egg. This is no time to
dawdle. Getting free from the nest is a
matter of survival. Hence, the precocious young.
C U C K O O
The cuckoo mom slips into a warbler's nest,
kicks out one of the original eggs and lays
one of its own in its place. It then quickly
flies away, undetected. This all occurs
in under ten seconds. The result is another
species of bird dutifully raises the cuckoo
while cuckoo mom and dad go about their life.
This parasitic strategy is used by bird species
that are always on the move, unable to take
time to build a nest and raise a family.
Meanwhile the cuckoo has grown into a monster,
pushing the other nestlings from their home,
demanding one hundred percent of the food
mom and dad can provide. For the next three
weeks Baby Huey will drive its warbler parents
to exhaustion, always demanding more food.
More food.
P E A C O C K
Peahens find it hard to resist peacocks sporting
a tail that is of exaggerated length. Things get
real interesting when Tex fans his rhinestone feathers
at the ladies. Business is good but risky.
The problem is getting all this ornamental paraphernalia
off the ground when a hungry predator thunders into view.
This huge tail trait is detrimental to the animal's survival.
The Fisherian Runaway is the term given this
trait that self-perpetuates a looping genetic quirk.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Vision
H U M A N E Y E
The eye senses light and passes along this information
to the brain. The mind's visual cortex receives these
impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.
The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that
may occur in transmission. It also collaborates with the
emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.
Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots
provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a
gagging sense of revulsion.
B A L D E A G L E
The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect
a rabbit from two miles away. Its eye has five times
the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.
The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly
grey shaded monochromatic. Their eyes are packed
with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost
no room for the eye's color-responding cones.
S U M A T R A N T I G E R
The black and white nocturnal vision of the
Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,
deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest
as well as the dark of night. You cannot see it
but it definitely has its eyes on you.
W H A L E
The left eye of the whale has an entirely different
watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.
They see most poorly in every direction, except for
in front. They have no view of the direction they are
headed, explaining one reason why whales are known
to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets. This applies
mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as
the blue whale and gray whale.
Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation
to chase down their prey.
C O Y O T E
The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in
the fullest of night and at dusk. But their noses and
their ears play the more important role in the life of
this predator. Their highly sensitive nose is best used
for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly
detect the slightest movement and the precise
direction from which it came.
B A T
Bats are not blind. They have eyes of varying ability.
Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon
and a heads up on large obstacles. Echolocation
is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space
around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.
Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the
aid of color. Most have no capacity for echolocation.
Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources
on providing traits they don't need.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Friday, October 9, 2026
Sunday, October 4, 2026
Saturday, October 3, 2026
Reason
S E L F A W A R E
Vitruvian Man
da Vinci
Humans don't settle for just being.
We have our own specific identity
and we want it to have purpose.
Why do I exist?
What should I do?
How do I fit in?
These are questions requiring reflection -
objective observation of one's own personal
characteristics as well as one's role in society.
Physical sustenance alone is never enough
to sustain the life of the mind.
A G R I C U L T U R E
Farming. Growing crops for future food.
Provide water and protection for the plants.
You understand time as a string of days.
There is a time to plant, time to nurture and
time to harvest. These seasons repeat as a
group into a year. Tracking the paths of stars
in the night sky enabled ancient farmers to
calculate where they were in the plant's
life cycle. Observation and simple math
enabled humanity to harvest a surplus,
providing enough food to support the
creation of towns.
E N G I N E E R I N G
Ziggurat of Ur
2100 BC
You need a plan.
What will it look like?
How long will it take?
How many builders will be needed ?
What kind of material is best to use?
What about the weather?
Where's the money?
We will need engineers and mathematicians.
Of course, this all has to be recorded so hire
a good number of scribes.
P O L I T I C S
What a clever species we are.
We organize to get things done.
Someone has to be in charge.
Rulers were made King.
Laws are made to govern behavior.
Disputes arise between societies that
sometimes require the lethal use of force.
Politics involves the acquiring of power
and then its efficient use for governing.
A R T
Venus of Willendorf
About 30,000 years ago someone carved
the woman of their desire. She was
four inches tall, a token of sensual form.
Her compact curves fit comfortably in the
palm of one's hand - just small enough
to take with you wherever your group
chanced to wander.
The head is under a basket. Could be
this prehistoric artist figured carving
facial features too difficult. Could be
that art doesn't always follow logic.
F A I T H
Life ever lasting. Heaven awaits those
of faith. It is a sacred story involving
redemption, as God had his son crucified
for the sake of cleansing humanity of
their sins.
Stories of faith address questions that have
answers science cannot provide. Like matters
of the spirit, sacred events leave no physical
trance for our detection. Undoubtedly,
much remains beyond the ability of our
current scientific instruments to discover.
But it will still need to be physical to detect.
Organizations promoting spiritual values often
validate human feelings of empathy, as well as
setting standards for decency and fairness.
Love thy neighbor.
What a concept.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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