May, 2010

My previous posts have looked at various aspects of my most recent trip to Canada & the USA – here are a few incidental point and shoot photos from my wanders around various cities, towns, rivers, bayous and forests over the past month or so…

The river was up 40 feet at the Greenville Bridge by the time we got there – swelled by the normal snowmelt in many of the 37 States and 2 Canadian provinces that drain into it and also from the floodwaters that flowed down from the Cumberland River that had trashed Nashville, Tennessee a couple of weeks ago – all of this made for some exciting canoeing – with many of the sandbars and islands under water.

Here are just a few pix from the northern part of my trip though the USA and Canada over the past few weeks. I’m in Mississippi right now and will post some more pix from my trip down the Mississippi River over the next few days.

Dan Hipgrave: “A poster on the door warned: “Bring your liquor inside but not your beer.” The walls were cluttered with posters and age-old postcards, while toy monkeys swung from the rafters. It was low lit – smoky but inviting, with beer and whiskey flowing freely.”

Yesterday I drove through Fate, Texas and had lunch in Hope, Arkansas – notable only for the fact that President Bill Clinton was born there. I doubt that he has had much reason to get back there in a while. Here are some quick shots of things I saw along the way…

In recent years Ethnoornithology has emerged as a valuable sub-discipline of ethnobiological research, partly for its potential to be able to make a valuable contribution to bird conservation and also as a means of empowering people of all cultures preserve, re-examine and discover the connections between individuals, groups and cultures and the birds that people hunt, venerate and cherish.

“As long as you have female dogs breeding at one end of town while you are desexing at the other end – it is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge – you cannot finish it until you desex 85 per cent of the local population,” she said. “That is the tipping point that you need to reach before you can effectively control population growth.”

Artists depicted include George Tjungurrayi (above), Brandy Tjungurrayi, Judy Napangardi Watson, Ningura Naparulla, Eubena Nampitjin, Ningie Nangala, Ronnie Tjampitjimpa, Paddy Tjapaltjarri Stewart, Bessie Nakamarra Simms and Dinny Nolan.