follow that qar!

Put up my first ARRLWeb classified last night: [29-Mar-2006] COLLINS 75S-1 #3069 FOR SALE: $250 plus shipping. Worked great when last used for several years pre-1980. Powered up once about 5 years ago, but not tested. Always stored indoors in smoke-free environments. Knobs/ feet/ power cord original. No known modifications. No crystals for top end of 10m. No manual. Needs a good cleaning. Sold as is. Sentimental value waning... needs a new life. Email N1AIA [at] ARRL [dot] NET. First response within the hour. End of an era. Update: First "buyer" backs out (you did read the ad, didn't you?). Second buyer steps up, steps back. Third buyer makes an offer I can refuse. Fourth buyer whisks the deal along. Era ends. 4/15.

Today — yes, during the last week of March — I saw my first butterfly of 2006 while walking up the trail from Laudholm Beach at the Wells Reserve. As I climbed the incline through a patch of woods, I spotted it flitting between cobbles on the wide path. I was able to approach it closely as it held its wings out in a patch of full sun. It looked like no butterfly I had seen before. Its most striking feature was a rich orange U-shaped band forming a wingtip-to-wingtip semicircle against wings of deep velvet brown. On the leading edge of each forewing were four patches. The innermost two were squares of the same orange, the next was a similar hue but washed out, and the last was whitish. The outer two patches merged somewhat with the band. By D. Gordon E. Robertson [CC-BY-SA-3.0] via Wikimedia Commons It had a sturdy-looking brown body, alert antennae, and a glossiness that shone like armor. I figured it was just about 2 inches across, maybe slightly more. Its flights were brisk a...

I've just found the Editors' Notebook from a 2004 issue of North American Birds , where Edward S. Brinkley writes: We intend to revisit an older article on Intermediate Egret on Midway Atoll, Hawaii (N. A. B. 53: 441-443), which may pertain to an "Eastern Cattle-Egret" rather than an Intermediate Egret (have we piqued the reader's interest?). As the author of the article in question, I am eager to see the clarification, which is apparently approaching a draft stage now. Ever since I was informed that the American Ornithologists' Union check-list committee passed over the "intermediate" egret report in its 45 th supplement, I have hoped to read a well documented alternative view. I expect to be presumed mistaken and am comfortable with that. It's just hard to be wrong so publicly. It happens, though; I am not alone. After recounting a handful of other questioned identifications recorded in NAB , Brinkley goes on to write: It is remarkable, and v...

...ever so slowly.