Toilet Tweeter (updated to add the current body count)
I am at the cabin on Fin Family Moominbeach and it is windy and pretty cold out. And we all seem to be twittering about the toilet, which I was initially kind of dumbfounded about but then Froog started twittering about it too and now I am just absolutely cracking up. Toilets on Twitter? I wonder if the Twitter folk foresaw this kind of usage. This is from my iPhone. I’ll have a more thorough update from wifi somewhere or other tomorrow. Love y’all, Boomerang Woman.
And the body count. TWO DEAD LOONS!!! Yes. There was only one last night. This morning another one washed up. Turtles were emerging from the depths of Gitchee Gumee last night. Big snappers. One dead, one alive. Click here to see the live one. According to our northern correspondent Paulette, they are likely descended from a batch of transplanted Ohio escapees from 25 years ago. Er, something like that anyway, that sentence lost itself somewhere in the middle and I don’t feel like fixing it. And finally, sadly, a seagull flopping around with what looked like a broken wing from a distance. A closer view revealed that one of its wings was totally tangled up in some kind of black netting material. I guess I have turned into some kind of bleeding heart after all the years I’ve lived on the Planet Ann Arbor because I was actually thinking of trying to find someone who would come and rescue it. And wondering if I was crazy or what. Paulette brought me back to reality with, “I don’t think anyone rescues seagulls”. And I knew that. Still I hated to see it suffer. But this morning it was gone. Drowned? Washed up on someone else’s beach. I’m not sure. I did not see any frogs but I think they’re there. Just holed up somewhere behind the bank or someplace.
There is a raging nor’wester here and it’s colder than blue blazes. I’m enjoying the weather but I hope it’s nicer where y’all are.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Dang–I’ll miss the update. I’ll be off line for a few days in the wilds of WA camping. There’s barely cell service and no internet. I’m kind of looking forward to it. Just games and beer drinking!
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:18 am
re: toilet tweets. the outhouse still works! although you may need to replenish the TP shortly.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I love your photos…..
July 4th, 2009 at 8:49 am
We had an alligator snapper hanging out in our parking lot for a while down here. For their size they’re pretty intimidating.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:46 am
We had a baby snapper, (about 2″ in diameter), in our aquarium for Water Ecology at the MSU Biological Station. For their size they’re pretty intimidating. We put a 3″ minnow in the tank, and that snapper came up from the bottom like a torpedo, and in two bites the minnow was no more. Needless to say, we did NOT put our fingers in the tank!
July 4th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
An outbreak of type E botulism among common loons (Gavia immer) in Michigan’s upper peninsula
CJ Brand, SM Schmitt, RM Duncan, and TM Cooley
I wonder if this is why the loons died. I know they had a number of seagulls die recently due to this in the Sleeping Bear dunes area. Have a nice fourth and happy anniversary!
ABSTRACT
An epizootic of type E botulism (Clostridium botulinum) occurred among common loons (Gavia immer) along the Lake Michigan shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (USA) during October and November 1983. An estimated 592 dead loons washed ashore along the Garden Peninsula. Type E botulinal toxin was demonstrated in blood samples and stomach contents of dead loons, and in samples of three species of dead fish found on the Lake Michigan shore. We suspect that loons acquired botulism by ingesting sick or dead fish containing type E toxin.