In the crystal clear waters of Shark Bay in Western Australia, scientists have noticed bottlenose dolphins engaging in an unusual behavior. They guide fish into the empty shells of giant snails, bring the shells to the surface and, then, shake them vigorously to dislodge the prey into their open mouths like a person polishing off a bag of popcorn. That extra effort, known as shelling, gets them a guaranteed meal.
Because the dolphins […] use the shells as a trap, this is the second known case of these marine mammals using tools. The first was reported in [1984] when researchers found that bottlenose dolphins wear marine sponges like protective gloves over their beaks to forage for fish on the sea floor. Now, researchers have shown that the dolphins of Shark Bay learn shelling from their friends. It’s the first time social learning involving a tool has been discovered in these mammals and a rare example of such learning in the animal kingdom.
Though scientists noticed the shelling behavior more than 10 years ago, it became more frequent following an unusual marine heat wave (PDF) off Western Australia in 2011. The high temperatures roiled Shark Bay’s ecosystem and many gastropods, including sea snails, are believed to have died. “We think the dolphins took advantage of this die-off,” says Sonja Wild, a behavioral ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. “The next season,” she says, “there was an incredible increase in shelling”, which made it possible for her to tease out how young adult dolphins learn to do it.
Wild says shelling starts among the adults [but], the more time a young dolphin spends around an accomplished sheller […], “the more likely it is to learn” the technique and pass it on to others later. Still, because dolphin calves spend more than 30,000 hours with their mothers, it’s possible that some learned the trick from their moms, [states] Janet Mann, a dolphin expert at Georgetown University. It’s considered more cognitively demanding to learn a skill like shelling from an unrelated individual because both learner and demonstrator must be socially tolerant, especially while hunting.
I dropped the ball and missed posting about our Summer Solstice. I did catch some pictures, though and a Snapshots Sunday is a perfect reason to post them. I posted about the Solstice in 2018, shortly after I had started blogging, again, after a four year absence. I did an Almanac write-up on the Solstice in 2019. This year’s Solstice occurred at 5:44pm EDT, yesterday. ~Vic
Daisy FamilyIt looks like a Sea Turtle, swimming towards me…sort of…Cone flowers in the Pollinator GardenBig FeatherNew GrowthIn FlightImage Credit: Farmers’ Almanac 1818
Some Folklore:
♦ In ancient Egypt, the summer solstice coincided with the rising of the Nile River. As it was crucial to predict this annual flooding, the Egyptian New Year began at this important solstice.
♦ In centuries past, the Irish would cut hazel branches on solstice eve to be used in searching for gold, water and precious jewels.
♦ Many European cultures hold what are known as Midsummer celebrations at the solstice, which include gatherings at Stonehenge and the lighting of bonfires on hilltops.
I picked this up from UPI. Poor baby. I’m so glad they rescued him. ~ Vic
“The bird was trapped in the bumper and injured. The officers rescued it and gave it to wildlife rehabilitation experts.”
Two off-duty Nassau County police officers saved a hawk that was trapped in the front bumper of a truck in Freeport early Wednesday morning. According to police, Marine Bureau officers Schwaner and Leek were on their way to work, together, around 6:20am, when they drove by a black Dodge Ram pickup truck, parked near the intersection of Merrick Road and Buffalo Avenue, that had a bird in its front bumper. The officers stopped to investigate and found that the bird was a red-tailed hawk and, that it was still alive.
The officers were able to remove the bird from the bumper and brought it to the Nassau County Police Marine Bureau base in Bay Park where they contacted the Volunteers for Wildlife in Locust Valley. The volunteers came and took the bird from the police back to their facility where it is being treated for its injuries.
In World War II, while serving as a United States Army Air Forces officer, famed World War I pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (Fred MacMurray) is assigned to tour South Pacific bases. On October 21, 1942, his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress has to ditch at sea, forcing Rickenbacker, pilot Lt. James Whittaker (Lloyd Nolan), co-pilot Capt. Bill Cherry (Richard Crane) and other crew members to survive for 19 days on a tiny rubber raft. While awaiting their rescue, Rickenbacker recalls his other adventures that have highlighted a remarkable life.
It seems as though someone is kidding…kidding in more ways than one. For Captain Eddie, which came yesterday to the Roxy, is not the story it promises to be of Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, ace of World War I and commercial airline executive who holds some rather rigid social views. Nor is it precisely the saga of the middle-aged flier who was lost at sea two years ago in the South Pacific and spent three harrowing weeks on a raft. It is just another sentimental comedy about a kid who jumped off the barn in his youthful passion for flying and courted his girl in a merry Oldsmobile. [This] is not the story of Rickenbacker…not the significant story, anyhow.
Trivia Bits:
♦ Crash survivor Lt. James Whittaker was […] temporarily assigned to the production to serve as a technical advisor.
♦ The film’s premiere was held in Rickenbacker’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio. In attendance were politicians and celebrities, including Carole Landis, as well as family members.
“Firstly, we are not a slave race.” ~ Chris Thomas
Those of us who have a more alternative view of world events are receiving increasingly confusing stories of who we are and, just what is the purpose of life on this wonderful planet of ours…all of this confusion being centred [around] the dates of 2011 and 2012. Over the past few years, I have taken delivery of a growing number of letters and emails and, had conversations with people who are becoming progressively more confused over information they have received, from numerous sources, about a race who call themselves Annunaki. All of this information claims that we are somehow [ascending], somewhere unspecified, where we will magically transport ourselves to a Fifth Dimension.
How do we make the leap?
Deep down, we all know we are here on Earth for a reason but, at our current level of consciousness, can’t quite grasp the details of our story. We know that we are changing, we also know that, as a race, we are set to make a huge leap in consciousness awareness…but, how? This is where the confusion arises. [H]ow do we achieve what we know we should be achieving as there does not appear to be any guidelines? This lack of known direction is creating a void, a lack of certainty, which is proving to be very unsettling.
The problem is that all of this discussion about Ascension has its attractions but, with that sense of attraction, also comes confusion. This has arisen because, while we know we should be on our amazing Earth, at the same time, this offer of ‘Ascension’ suggests that we might be able to achieve a raised consciousness by leaving the planet but, without solving any of the problems we have generated. Into this void has arisen a story which, on the face of it, has many attractions. Here we have an alien race that claim to be our makers and who have returned to Earth, at this time, to help us through our transition to a ‘fifth dimension.’ These claims centre [around] a Galactic Committee, of varying names and descriptions, who control a large fleet of space-ships, under the control of Ashtar Command, that are arriving in our solar system with the intention of transporting us off the planet.
Leaving our troubles behind…
This Annunaki Plan is seductive, offering to take care of all our troubles for us…we (humans) are taken off the planet and, so, we no longer need to worry about global warming, nuclear weapons, pollution, overpopulation and food shortages… We wouldn’t have to deal with those kinds of problems as these kind aliens will sort all of that out for us. But…having read a great deal of the information these aliens are channelling, nowhere do they state where they are meant to be taking us. Somehow or other, ascending to a fifth dimension is meant to solve all of our problems, cure all of our ills and, lead us into a future where all will be beyond our wildest dreams. However, wherever these aliens take us to, it will not be on Earth. These aliens also state that they created humans to be a race enslaved to the Annunaki. This enslavement should also be taken into account when we consider this ‘Annunaki Plan’.
Image Credit: Pymnts
The Alternative
My own viewpoint is that, having researched and written about human history, as recorded in the Akashic, for the past thirty years or so, there is an alternative to this alien ‘Annunaki Plan.’ Firstly, we are not a slave race. When we were first created, we freely chose to come to Earth to explore a request made by the Creator…is human life possible? This is our purpose on Earth. There is no other. Secondly, we are close to answering the Creator’s question. This is what the dates of 2011 and 2012 are about…the completion of The Human Plan, the completion of the Creator’s quest for an answer. Given we are so close to answering the Creator’s question, why would we want to leave the Earth? The answer[?] [We] don’t. If we leave the Earth, we fail in our chosen task and the repercussions of abandoning our Earth will send shock-waves through the whole Universe.
This is my purpose for writing The Annunaki Plan? or The Human Plan?, to try and clarify what our choices are […]. [It] is our choice to make. Do we abandon the Earth and travel to an unknown destination and, [an] unknown future with an alien race who claim to have created humans as their slaves? Or, do we stay on Earth and complete the task we set ourselves on, [for] the Creator’s behalf and create for ourselves a human future without limits?
Answering the Creator’s question…
Once we have answered the Creator’s question, we bring ourselves all of the answers that we need to resolve all of the problems here on Earth. [We] can save ourselves and the planet with this one act of completion. Abandoning the Earth means that we leave the Creator’s question unanswered.
[We need] to try and clarify this confusion over the ‘fifth dimension.’ As someone who has worked with the energies of the human body for over thirty years (as a psychic surgeon), my experience has taught me that the body contains a surprising amount of energy (around 12 dimensions). [Try] applying Einstein’s E=mc2 equation to the body and you will see what I mean. The ‘fifth dimension’ actually relates to the third chakra…about navel level. I am sure we would all agree that ascending to your navel is not a major step forwards in human evolution!
Anonymous Artist Vlad III
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
The conflict initially started with Vlad‘s refusal to pay the jizya (tax on non-Muslims subjects charged at 2.5%) to the sultan and [it] intensified when Vlad invaded Bulgaria. In response, Mehmed raised a great army with the objective to conquer Wallachia and annex it to his empire. The two leaders fought a series of skirmishes, the most notable one being the Night Attack where Vlad attacked the Turkish camp in the night in an attempt to kill Mehmed. The assassination attempt failed and Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgoviște, where he found a few men with cannons. After leaving the capital, Mehmed discovered 23,844 impaled Turks whom Vlad had killed during his invasion of Bulgaria. The number is mentioned by Vlad himself in a letter to Matthias Corvinus (Matthias I). The sultan, and his troops, then sailed to Brăila and burned it to the ground before retreating to Adrianople. Both sides claimed victory in the campaign and Mehmed’s forces returned home with many captured slaves, horses and cattle.
There are two extant ballads […], both of which narrate the same story. As ballads existed within oral tradition[s] before being written down, other versions of this once popular song also may have existed. Moreover, other ballads used its tune without necessarily referring to [this particular ballad].
This ballad was entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1624. The title is alternatively spelled Chevy Chace. The ballad is generally thought to describe the Battle of Otterburn. Some of the verses correspond to that battle but, not all. The Battle of Otterburn took place in 1388. At that [b]attle, Henry Percy (Hotspur) was captured, not killed. He was killed in 1403 in an uprising against Henry IV.
The death of Earl Douglas
Author: John Frederick Tayler
Image Credit: All Posters & Wikimedia
[A]nother possibility [was] border warfare between a Percy and a Douglas in 1435 or 1436. Henry Percy of Northumberland made a raid into Scotland with 4,000 men. He was met by William Douglas, Earl of Angus at Piperden. There were great losses on each side but, the Scots prevailed.
Over time, and the various evolutions of the ballad, events and personages have gotten confused.
The famous fairy tale is musicalized and given a modern 1940s spin with the principal characters (Cinderella, Prince Charming and the Wicked Step Sisters) all played by children.
Trivia Bit:
♦ This short was produced toward the tail end of Shirley Temple‘s reign as Hollywood’s #1 box office star and it’s reasonable to assume it was made to showcase young talent that Warner Brothers may have thought had a shot at replicating Temple’s success.
I’d never heard of Mazzy Star or heard this song when it originally came out. I am late to the party finding this, just discovering them a few years ago. Sadly, David Robackpassed away February 24, 2020, from cancer.
I did a complete write-up on the Strawberry Moon last year with two videos. No need to repeat. Full illumination occurred at 3:12pm EDT. Howl for me! ~Vic
Late add:
I forgot to mention that there was a penumbral eclipse (space.com link) of this Moon but, we weren’t in the path of sight. We will be in the path of sight for the early July eclipse and the late November eclipse.
Waxing Gibbous with a Sky Eagle
06-01-2020Through the limbs.
06-03-2020Happy Waxing GibbousGrowing Gibbous
06-04-2020Clouds moved in.
Little bit of rain.
Spooky
06-05-2020Lovely glow.
Cosmic-Observation 