A Nationalist takes red squirrel as mascot
Research Blog | May 17, 2009
Well! Sad but inevitable use of animals as symbols. The squirrel of course is cute and wonderful, and was at one time well-adapted and in balance with its native habitat. But c’mon – I’ve been keeping quiet and recording “just the facts” about the critters – and it wasn’t hard to find this unsurprising (lock)step:…
“Helping our reds to stand up for themselves”
Research Blog | May 17, 2009
+ + + + 22,586 Grey Squirrels trapped since January 2007 (statistic from the RSSP) + + + + This is a screen shot of the Northern Red Squirrels home page – a volunteer protection group: A link from their web site led me to an article in the Telegraph from April 2009, in which the Prince…
ÜR SQUIRREL
Research Blog | May 17, 2009
Sorry. I can’t stop myself. Here’s the best picture yet of a red squirrel. If ever there was a reason to protect the Reds, it’s their supersonic selfdom. Though this one looks wily enough to defeat the Pox.
Thomas Bewick, Waiting for Death
Research Blog | May 17, 2009
In the manifold and often ugly ways people interrelate with animals, Bewick’s wood engravings portray the specifics of rural northern England at a time when conditions, politics and views toward the land and nature were changing (urbanization, privatization of land, and the disappearance of the commons). Bewick escapes nostalgia, although many of his tiny, delicate…
National Insect Week
Research Blog | May 10, 2009
Well I’ll be; who knew? The Royal Entomological Society, that’s who. I am sad they only do even years – the next National Insect Week is in 2010 But they continue to host competitions like Close Encounters: …and to offer loads of information on the National Insect Week web site. There’s some great contextual material…
Pit Ponies
Research Blog | May 1, 2009
This image freaks me out, as well it should. from Wikipedia: Ponies began to be used underground, often replacing child or female labour, as distances from pithead to coal face became greater. The first known recorded use in Britain was in the Durham coalfield in 1750. In later years, mechanical haulage was introduced on the…
The poison garden
Research Blog | May 1, 2009
“Grow your own mandrake and get 2 for 1 entry to The Alnwick Garden.” Now that‘s a tempting draw. Gates of The Poison Garden at Alnwick Tunnel of Ivy En Route to the Poison Garden The Duchess of Northumberland was granted permission to grow all sorts of toxic, noxious, illicit and delightful magickal plants, including…
When Reds were dead
Research Blog | May 1, 2009
I’m not sorry that the squirrel-human gyre keeps widening. There was apparently a time, not long ago, that the Squirrel Clubs of the Scottish Highlands had their sites on the Reds. This week the BBC published in a historical report, ‘Send Me Tails of Red Squirrels’ that …from 1903, there was an active effort on…
Tufty the Squirrel saved children from becoming roadkill.
Research Blog | April 30, 2009
Friend Richard O’Flynn (whom I will ask for a close reading) alerted me to the 1973 UK Public Information Films of Tufty the Red Squirrel. BBC News published a tribute to Tufty in 2006: Tufty is a colossus of public information. Though just a small squirrel, he was a phenomenon who bestrode childhoods from the…
Philip Henry Gosse, Hyena
Research Blog | April 21, 2009
Apropos nothing except looking in depth at Victorian naturalists, I found this passage by Gosse from a digitized Google Book copy of “The Romance of Natural History” (1863) Gosse’s use of the “you” seems more choose-your-own-adventure than Victorian nature narratives. He declares in the preface that he’s taken an aesthetic approach, and while he denies…
Naturalist Craze in Britain
Research Blog | April 20, 2009
Excerpt from Nature and Nation: Britain and America in the 19th Century David Lowenthal History Today; Dec 2003
Squirrel and Hazelnut paté
Research Blog | April 20, 2009
A few morsels from the New York Times’ January 2009 article on “Saving a Squirrel by Eating One” article. If you are so enchanted as to sample the cute critters, the last excerpt certainly puts a dent in the argument for delighting in consumption: Enter the “Save Our Squirrels” campaign begun in 2006 to rescue…
Reds vs Grays (1-13)
Research Blog | April 20, 2009
Squirrels. Imagine them: Red feather headdresses versus gray flannel suits of the Wall Street reivers. Landgrabbing American Grays – purveyors of squirrel pox pockets – turn little Reds into sludge. BRITAIN’S FAVORED NATIVES SACKED BY IMMIGRANTS, say headlines; diseases carrying foreigners, or foreigners carrying disease – either way. Like Mayflower, like Ailanthus, they come with…
Northumberland BlackFace Sheep
Research Blog | April 16, 2009
“Blackface lamb is naturally reared, symbolising the purity and goodness of the land and has a reputation for its unrivalled sweet flavour and tenderness. Available from September onwards, it is without doubt ‘ naturally good ‘.”
“Inter Sylvas et Flumina Habitans”
Research Blog | April 16, 2009
Morpeth, Living amid the woods and waters… A Coaching Stop on the London-Edinburgh route which crossed the ‘moors-path’ Alternatively called the `Murder Path’ from the times of the border reivers (basically robber barons) (1400-1600). Somewhat akin to the Wild West.
Squirrel Facts (Reds VS Grays)
Research Blog | April 12, 2009
In an effort to save the native Red Squirrel, the invasive Gray Squirrel in the UK been subject to a holocaust (esp in Northumbria, the last stronghold of the reds): Over 20,000 Gray Squirrels are Culled. Gray Squirrels were brought over from America in the early 19th century “to amuse the rich;” now they’ve gotten…
Squirrel Facts (Elvis the Pelvis)
Research Blog | April 12, 2009
So much for the natives feeling less antipathy towards their compatriots. Elvis, an injured red squirrel, attacked a pensioner who came to his aid at the weekend, leaving the man needing hospital treatment. Ernie Gordon, 75, a squirrel fanatic who wrote a children’s book The Adventures of Rusty Red Coat, was called out last Friday…
Squirrel Facts (Ratatoskr)
Research Blog | April 12, 2009
Yggdrasil the world tree. Wägner, Wilhelm. 1882. Nordisch-germanische Götter und Helden In Norse mythology, Ratatoskr (Old Norse, generally considered “drill-tooth” or “bore-tooth”) is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the unnamed eagle, perched atop Yggdrasil, and the wyrm Níðhöggr, who dwells beneath one of the three…
Lindisfarne
Research Blog | April 10, 2009
Farne Island is home to the Lindisfarne Priory ruins, whose monks in the 7th century created the Gospels, an unusual and exquisite Celtic Christian illuminated manuscript. Birds are rife in the manuscript as well as a cat on the front page, quite unusual in the iconography, according to Aly Wolff-Mills, a student at ITP who…
St Cuthbert, first animal rights advocate?
Research Blog | April 9, 2009
Here is an account of the life of St. Cuthbert as told by The Venerable Bede. Cuthbert is a 6th century proto St. Francis figure, famed in his time as a miracle worker. Cuthbert was born in Northumberland circa 634. .. at various times in his life, Cuthbert was a monk, a hermit, and –…