* P I C K A C A R D *
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Sunday, April 12, 2026
Saturday, April 11, 2026
Raptor
C A L I F O R N I A C O N D O R
A large bird of prey with a ten foot wingspan.
These are vultures left over from the Ice Age,
soaring over a landscape rich with Sabre Tooth Tiger,
Woolly Mammoths and ground sloths that appeared
near the size of elephants. By 1982 the condor was at
the brink of extinction with its population down to
twenty-two. As scavengers they became the victim
of ranchers who set out poisoned carrion
in order to kill coyotes that preyed upon
their livestock.
A captive breeding program has increased their
numbers to over six hundred, as of 2025.
This vulture loves meat, as any raptor should,
but it first has to already be dead.
Birds of prey are required to have talons
powerful enough to hold fast their struggling
prey, then kill it and carry it away.
A vulture's feet are good only for standing.
There is no need to tightly grasp a
desperate morsel.
B A L D E A G L E
The term Bald in the name is from the Old English
balde, which means "white head", not bald like
a head naked of feathers.
Designated by Congress as the National Emblem in
1782, the Bald Eagle was right out of central casting,
an icon of strength, resolve and justice.
The truth is more complicated, as you might expect.
Survival is the animal's goal in the wild.
Use your energy efficiently. Why go to the effort of
killing food when you can eat something that is
already dead, waiting for your appetite? Eagles
mostly scavenge. They also resort to
bullying osprey and other smaller birds of prey
and steal their lunch.
Still, they look spectacular performing their
grab and dash fishing skills while skimming
a river's surface.
R E D - T A I L E D H A W K
Look at all the surface area of this bird's wings
and tail. Broad wings and a fanned tail sacrifices
speed for the sake of lift. Warm air carries the bird
upward to great heights, and with little effort on
the part of the bird. Burn your calories sparingly,
especially in the desert when a meal might be
limited to a scraggly jackrabbit, itself half-starved.
From this floating perch the hawk surveys the
terrain below with a vision that is eight times
sharper than that of a human, looking for mice,
lizards, snakes and anything else small enough
to carry off.
The female Red-Tailed Hawk is about twenty-five
percent larger than the male. It makes sense
that she have the muscle, since she's the one
left defending the nest. Also, and this is more
important, a brawny mom is able to wrest meat
from the beak of a male, reluctant to share
his meal with the nestlings.
P E R E G R I N E F A L C O N
This bird isn't made to soar.
The Falcon is all about speed.
The long, narrow wings and slim, aerodynamic
tail; its sleek airframe tough enough to withstand
speeds reaching over two-hundred miles an hour
in a dive. Falcons prey on birds in flight.
Its critical you kill your target with your talons.
A bird to bird collision makes you both
equally dead.
The falcon's vision is comparable to that of the hawk
but each species utilizes this advantage differently.
Hawks look about for small animals to eat from
a great height overhead. The falcon behaves
as a bullet adjusting its own path in flight to
achieve the perfect, lethal hit.
G R E A T H O R N E D O W L
What is the point in having a head that can swivel
nearly all the way around? There is a reason
behind everything. In this instance, the neck's
dexterity compensates for the owl's limited
peripheral vision. The owl has wonderful eyes.
Why this weakness?
Rule of everything - nothing's perfect.
Nature is filled with trade-offs. You have to
give up something to get something.
One factor contributing to the owl's spectacular
sight has to do with the bird's unusual eyeball
shape. Its oblong. And it is this characteristic
that enables the eye to close in on an object,
acting as a telephoto lens does in a camera.
Achieving this feat of vision requires an eye
so large it barely fits its socket, making the eye
totally unable to move.
Hence the swivel neck.
Nature gives up something to get something
in return. In this case, what is being sacrificed
for game-changing vision? The individual can
see only straight ahead. Unacceptable.
The compensatory solution: a neck that
can twist to 270 of the circle's 360 degrees.
Nature's judgment: the species thrives with these
choices having been made.
B R O W N P E L I C A N
How do you grasp your prey when your feet are webbed?
Talons are useless for swimming and pelicans
must be fast swimmers to catch their prey.
The solution for grasping lies elsewhere.
Most birds of prey lead with their feet when attacking
their prey. They attack with a powerful grip, using their
long claws like teeth. The pelican attacks head first
in pursuit of a targeted fish. Growing teeth on their bill
was tried by ancient species, all extinct. It made the
head needlessly heavy. Claws became the bird's teeth.
We've ruled out talons and now, teeth as well.
The problem is we are looking to grip the prey
when all we have to do is control it. Bag it.
A pouch, and one that is elastic would work.
It would expand to scoop up and retain a large,
thrashing fish. But this expansive gullet is not
for storage. Once the prey is corralled, the
pelican slings back its head and swallows
the fish whole. No arguments.
Just a meal.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Saturday, April 4, 2026
Serengeti
A F R I C A N S A V A N N A
In this region of west Equatorial Africa
an ancient cycle of life has continued, unchanged,
over the millions of years leading up to now.
Played out on this stage is an endless migration,
vast in the scale of animal movement.
The grassland, covered with wildebeest, zebra
and gazelle, all on the move, trekking by
the hundreds of thousands to elsewhere...
someplace that exists only as a feeling,
shared by the individuals involved in
this Hollywood size epic.
B A O B A B T R E E
A giant, drought resistant tree stands much as it has
over the past 200 million years, a glimpse of life
that prevailed on this land even before
Africa became a continent.
Locals call it the Upside-Down Tree because,
when the leaves drop, the branches look like roots
to a tree stuck in the ground wrong-side up.
I M P A L A
This athletic antelope can clear a ten foot high obstacle
while its pursuer must go around. It's abilities such as
this that keeps a healthy Impala one step ahead
of a pursuing lion or hyena.
Moving from grassland to the woodlands
doesn't make you safe. Leopards and male
lions specialize in ambushing Impalas that
browse the brush, casually nibbling leaves.
Suddenly its neck is being crushed in a
vice-like grip. All hope for breath ends.
The feast begins even as the last embers
of thought leave the mind.
L I O N
A rare social cat that requires for survival a complex
family unit, ruled by a matriarch. Much of the time
males are on the outside looking in. The ticket to
fatherhood requires getting past some battle-scarred
male guarding his harem. The odds of success
are made better when young males band together
to take out the previously feared leader.
The victorious lions must now face-off among
themselves as to who is most worthy of
now becoming the new breeder in chief.
B L U E W I L D E B E E S T
The wildebeest migration never ends; a herd of
more than a million and a half strong, grazing on
the nutrient-rich savanna grasses that flourish
with the passing rains.
There is no opportunity to lead a herd that
stretches to the horizon. There is no decision maker
leading the way. Instead, wildebeest rely on
"swarm" intelligence. Movement is collective.
Everyone just follows everyone else.
S P O T T E D H Y E N A
A matriarchal society of carnivores that compete
with lions for ruling the savanna grasslands.
Hyenas organize into clans that can number
over a hundred. Adult females are larger than
the males. In fact, they look more like males
than do the males. Males are needed to
provide genetic diversity to the species as well
as delivering bonus seasoning to another
individual's life.
M A S A I G I R A F F E
It takes a twenty-plus pound heart to ensure blood
makes it up that long neck to deliver oxygen to
the brain. Giraffes can grow to 19 feet in height.
They consume about 75 pounds of leaves daily
to stay healthy. All those leaves are lassoed by
its 20 inch tongue. The tongue's pigment is very
dark, protecting it from sunburn.
What a rare and exotic beast.
There is no other animal like the giraffe.
What is it about the habitat of the Serengeti
that it alone could enable an animal such as this
to prevail?
A F R I C A N E L E P H A N T
The oldest female runs the herd. She best knows
the location of water and food in times of drought.
Her top priority being family survival.
Another Serengeti animal of rare and exotic
anatomy is the elephant. What other animal
relies on its nose to serve as its arm, one sensitive
enough to pick up a blade of grass, yet having
the power to uproot a tree.
Nature has truly engineered an out of the box solution
for overcoming the challenges an elephant faces
in life.
B L A C K M A M B A
If you don't have antivenom handy when bit
you have about thirty minutes to write your
last will and testament.
The mamba doesn't want anything to do
with you. Provide it a path to escape and
it will leave. Corner it and you are contending
with the most feared snake in Africa. It has
extraordinary speed and size. The mamba
bites you multiple times when it strikes,
injecting lethal doses of toxins that kill nerves
as well as toxins to attack your heart.
May your good-byes be speedy.
R U P P E L L ' S V U L T U R E
An aircraft stuck one of these birds flying at 37,000 feet.
Its exotic hemoglobin protein enables it to breath
in very thin air. What advantage would this characteristic
give to this savanna scavenger? They benefit from
their panoramic view of the savanna to spot carrion
but altitude quickly becomes counterproductive
when above a couple thousand feet.
A vulture flying at several thousand feet
is no longer looking for dinner down below
because they are searching the horizon for
evidence of something big.
The sight of vultures circling is like a dinner bell
for other vultures working the area.
Come join in on the feast.
Something found dead and big as a zebra means
everyone that shows up gets a full belly
for the day as its reward.
O L I V E B A B O O N
Females stay with the baboon troop they were
born into, inheriting the social rank of their mother.
Males leave around the age of six and take on
the challenge of establishing their position
on the pecking order totem pole of another
troop.
Elephants have a defensive alliance with
baboons around waterholes. The baboons
provide the alarm when danger lurks nearby.
In turn, agitated elephants ward off hungry
lions, hyenas and leopards - and anyone
else looking to have baboon for brunch.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Pond
F R E S H W A T E R P O N D
A tight, interdependent little community sharing
a small body of water that doesn't quickly go away.
Each animal is both predator and prey, an unknowing
participant in a self-sustaining cycle of nutrients,
a cycle of life, first by devouring another and then
by becoming a meal for someone else.
This is not survival of the fittest.
This is simply fate for the living.
B L U E D A S H E R w i t h W A T E R M I T E S
This brightly colored male dragonfly should be at
his prime, getting fat eating all the tasty insects
arriving at the pond... as though they were
checking in to a resort for a five star makeover.
Sure, coming right up.
You're gone so quick
you don't know you're gone.
That's dragonfly normal. Just like the training manual
described. But your belly is festooned with a couple
hundred parasitic larvae. You're exhausted. Out of sorts.
And just sluggish enough to be snatched and devoured
by a patrolling perch. Your nutrients are passed along
to another. Crisp on the outside, thick and gooey
on the inside. It has a delightful larval topping.
Like caviar.
Y E L L O W P E R C H
Excellent flavor. We farm them by the tens of thousands.
They aren't going anywhere. They are a fish fry staple.
Gills and scales commercially farmed like chickens.
They aren't exposed to what lurks in the dark, still waters
of a grassland pond. Here the story gets even more
precarious.
Ponds are isolated patches of water that change
with the seasons. They are found where the ground
is too hard for the water to be absorbed or it dips
into the surrounding water table.
Water evaporates and ponds periodically run dry.
It could be months, even years, before rain restores
the ponds and life returns.
Who returns? How could frogs and fish
possibly survive this drought? No water.
No food. No oxygen.
It's amazing what a line of animals can adapt to
given a million years of trying.
B U L L F R O G
Up to eight inches long and over a pound in weight.
That's as big as any native frog gets in North America.
These guys are famous for their deep, resonate croak.
They work together with crickets to create that
good old country, nighttime melody.
This is a male frog. Look at that eardrum behind his ear.
It's huge. The female eardrums are about half this size.
They both sit like buddhas on a lily pad... motionless,
waiting. A dead bluegill floats belly-up nearby.
It's smell of decay is a delicious scent to a passing
fly. It pauses and hovers to investigate. Snap!
The frog's elastic tongue-like appendage snares the fly
in 0.07 of one second. Impossibly fast.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
The bullfrog spends his summer days
at the pool, sunning his pleasant self,
leisurely sweeping up insects as though
they were hors d'oeuvres, featured with
cocktails, in the lobby at four.
N O R T H E R N W A T E R S N A K E
No eggs. They give birth to their young live. A litter of
twenty or more squirming babies is not unusual.
They become hefty with size - big boned thick
as adults. They favor frogs, salamanders and
fish of every description for food.
They aren't poisonous and, unless cornered,
they prefer running over fighting.
You live longer.
It makes sense for a water snake to not lay eggs.
Where's the land? Eggs can't breath in water.
Eggs are food for herons and raccoons.
They wouldn't stand a chance left alone.
No, the strategy for this snake's young
are like that of the jackrabbit. From day one
its basically scatter and hide.
M A R S H W R E N
They kill the young ones of birds that dare to nest
near them. The male is always building new nests,
anywhere from six to over twenty, during the
course of the breeding season. The female choses
one, lining it with something soft and comfortable.
The remaining nests become bachelor pads
and places to strut about.
R A C C O O N
Trash panda. They love your leftovers.
And for greater convenience they can nest
in the attic. Masked bandit. You are a pest
to them. Always getting in their way.
The good news is they prowl around at night
eating mice and insects. They prefer living alone.
Raccoons have been introduced to other habitats
globally. Invasive species generally disrupt
the area as uninvited guests to the table.
They wipe out native species that better
fit the balance of nature.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
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