Good Joke for Birdwatchers.

[catsittingstill]

Kip and I were watching the second season of Rome a couple of nights ago. In one of the late season episodes (I think it was "About Your Father"), two characters have fled into the desert and a third has found them there.

Characters one and three have known each other a long time, and they talk quietly around the fire in the desert night. In the background a bird cries.

And the bird chosen to emphasize the utter loneliness of the Egyptian desert…

…was a loon.

I fell over laughing.

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Haven't you hear of the Ptolemy's Desert Loon, known for inhabiting dry lake beds, diving for dormant brine shrimp eggs, and, uh...er...um...

OK, it was a temperature inversion in the atmosphere that turned the air between the northern Great Lakes and Egypt into a waveguide, and it was so quiet in the desert that the sound was audible from that one...uh...bird...

It's as much fun as when they superimpose Apollo photos that show the trailing side of the moon, rather than the near side, into the earth's sky.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize they did that, with the moon pictures. I would have thought there would be so many fine pictures of the moon from the earth side, that someone searching for moon pictures would be more likely to find them than the rare pictures of the moon from the far side.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

The problem is that earth-based photos--by major observatories or by individuals tend to be copyrighted. NASA photos are of good quality, seem "authoritative," and are safely in the public domain.

If you'd like to see pictures, scroll down to "Rant No. 1: The Wrong Side of the Moon" on this page.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I read your rant with interest. Thank you.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether to pound my head on the desk or roll about on the floor laughing. Oh, dear.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) I guess most people just think it's a fine lonely sound, and don't realize it's made by a bird with a particular habitat. Apparently it happens pretty often that loon calls show up in movies set in wilderness--any wilderness.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

At one time, Hollywood movies tended to use the same park in Anaheim for outdoor shots of medieval films. Unfortunately, there was an indigenous bird with a distinct call.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) I understand that many historical movies are now shot in New Zealand; perhaps they have the same problem.