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A pecking order

As you may know, my mother keeps a brood of hens.  She says it’s so we can have eggs and eventually chicken (when they get too old to lay eggs), but I think it might be more because of nostalgia.  She had a flock of chickens and ducks growing up as a child.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that one of the chickens, a Barred Rock,

she’s acquired is a huge bully.  HUGE bully.  The Barred Rock arrived with a Buff Orpington

who is also pretty big.  Together, they bully the entire brood of hens, with the Orpington filling the role of the lackey.

Actually, they kind of remind me of Bulk and Skull of Power Ranger fame.  Yes, I did just bring Power Rangers into this post.  I would have mentioned Voltron instead, but Voltron didn’t have a duo of bullies.  Now, Bulk and Skull were kind of ineffective as bullies, but they were a duo.  I can’t think of any other team of bullies that only involved a pair.  So anyway, I present to you the Bulk and Skull of our chickens.

They’re pretty mean to the other chickens.  The Barred Rock has her pick of food bowls.  When she goes toward one, all the other chickens, with the exception of the Buff Orpington run away.  They seriously run the other direction.  It’s not a saunter.  There’s no pretending that they’re suddenly interested in something else on the other side of the yard.  It’s fleeing…in terror.  The Orpington doesn’t inspire as much terror in the other chickens, but they’re wary of her too, since the Barred Rock and Buff Orpington like to hang out together.  The Barred Rock sometimes picks on the Orpington too.  The Orpington just kind of takes it.

That was it.  I just thought you’d like to know that some of the chickens think they’re part of the Power Rangers.

Btw, in writing this post, I learned that a group of mixed chickens is a flock of chickens.  A group of hens is a brood of hens.  A group of chicks is a peep or clutch of chicks.

Photos used with permission under Creative Commons and link back to the photographer’s site.

“The more you know” clip I assume is owned by NBC since their logo appears directly afterward, but I just found it on youtube and since no one has sued to take it down since it’s gone up (2009) I assume it’s ok to embed it here.

Sandy Island

Islands that disappear have always been interesting to me.  Like Hog Island of New York.  There’s actually very little (useful) information on it.  Which makes it all the more interesting.  One day it was there.  The next day (after a category 2 hurricane made landfall) it was gone.  Mostly.  It took awhile after that to completely disappear but essentially, the whole island disappeared.  Because of a hurricane.  Interesting.

It has recently come to my attention that there has been another disappearing island.  This one is of a slightly different nature.  It’s disappearance is not so much because of a natural disaster but probably because it never existed in the first place.  Here, let me show you.

This is Sandy Island, which I have so helpfully circled, pointed to, and labeled for you.  You can see that it’s supposedly in the South Pacific, the Coral Sea actually, and located about halfway between New Caledonia and Australia (not shown).  Now then, drawn maps are all well and good, but sometimes cartographers can make mistakes.  Let me show you the satellite image of the same area.

This is the same exact area on the same scale as before.  Note where Sandy Island is supposed to be.  Note that it’s just a black blob.  I’ve even put in an inset for you to help clarify it’s black blobbiness.  Google does not have any photos of Sandy Island.  Why?  Because it doesn’t exist.  Tada!  Disappearing island!  Interesting!

Now then, I’m sure the conspiracy theorists among you can think of SO. MANY. reasons why Google and some others show a nonexistent island on their maps.  But really…rly??  Simple human error, says I.  Maps used to be made by compiling information from different sailors.  It’s not like they were the most accurate things ever.  Maps are much more accurate now since cartographers can actually get to an area and map it via plane, satellite, radar, sonar, etc, etc.  We have so much technology now that has helped cartography.  My guess is that this island had made it onto a database somewhere and the printers just propagated the error, thinking that someone surely must have checked the existence of a whole island.

Anyway, here is how I first learned of Sandy Island.  I especially like the part where the captain of the boat is nervous about sailing through an island that isn’t there because it was on his weather maps but not his navigation charts.  He was afraid they might run aground only to find out that the ocean is really deep where the island supposedly is.

Oh, and here.  I found the wikipedia article on the island.  It’s listed as a “phantom island.”  Hehehe.