birds that walk

New Zealand is home to many weird and wonderful bird species, including quite a few that can't fly. This is easily explained by the absence of land mammals on these islands since the time of the dinosaurs. Since human arrived and brought other mammals with them, many of these unusual bird species have become vulnerable. Like island species elsewhere, some have become extinct, and many others are now in danger of extinction.

Following a suggestion from the editorial team, I used my latest feature to study (from the other side of the world) the intriguing world of NZ birds and the conservation work that is needed to keep them alive:

Land of the birds that walk

Current Biology Volume 33, Issue 19, 9. October 2023, Pages R987-R990

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2023.

I'm not on Instagram myself, but I believe if you follow CurrentBiology there, you'll find my features highlighted there as well.

The endangered kakapo is one of New Zealand’s 16 surviving species of flightless birds. Twice winner of the Bird of the Year competition, it is benefiting from intensive conservation management. (Photo: Jake Osborne/Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).)

rights of nature

Every once in a while we read in the news that a river here or a forest there has been granted legal rights, mostly the right not to be destroyed by human greed. Following a suggestion from one of the editors at Current Biology, I did a round-up of recent developments in rights of nature and examined whether it's more of a symbolic thing or actually helps protection.

My resulting feature is out now:

Reclaiming nature's rights

Current Biology Volume 31, Issue 23, 06 December 2021, Pages R1505-R1507

FREE access to full text and PDF download

See also my twitter thread listing all the 2021 features in Current Biology as they move to the open archives. I will keep this thread on twitter until the end of the year, but probably launch the new one for 2022 open archives on Mastodon, assuming that the decline and fall of the bird app continues.

The former nature reserve Te Urewera in New Zealand has now become a legal entity that effectively owns its land. (Photo: Department of Conservation, New Zealand/Flickr (CC BY 2.0).)

reading the world

I was very impressed when I read that the author Ann Morgan had managed to read one book from each of the 196 countries represented at the 2012 Olympics in London. Her list of books read and others that were recommended to her is here, and the book she wrote about the experience is reviewed here.

Thinking about how embarrassingly far I would fall short of that figure I estimated I would be lucky to make it to 50 countries (in my life so far, not in a year) and started my own list to prove it. If and when I've reviewed a book on this list, I've included a link to the review. If I can't remember whether I've actually read it (even though it's on my shelf), I've marked it with CR. NFY means not finished yet. Still struggling to get to 50 though.

1. Algeria – Mehdi Charef: Thé au harem d’Archi Ahmed (CR - saw the movie though)
2. Argentina – Federico Andahazi: El anatomista (The anatomist)
3. Austria – Daniel Kehlmann: Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the world)
4. Belgium – Amélie Nothomb – L’hygiène de l’assassin
5. Brazil – Paulo Coelho: Der Alchemist (The alchemist)
6. Canada - L. M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables
7. Chile – Isabel Allende: La casa de los espiritus (The house of the spirits)
8. China – Hong Ying: K – the art of love
9. Colombia – Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Cien años de soledad
10. Congo, Republic of the – Alain Mabanckou: Verre Cassé (Broken Glass)
11. Cote d'Ivoire – Fatou Keita: La rebelle
12. Cuba – Zoe Valdes: La nada cotidiana
13. Ecuador – Alicia Yanez Cossio: El cristo feo
14. Equatorial Guinea – Guillermina Mekuy: El llanto del perro
15. France – Anna Gavalda: Ensemble, c’est tout (Hunting and gathering)
16. Germany – Charlotte Roche: Feuchtgebiete (Wetlands)
17. Guatemala – Miguel Angel Asturias: Leyendas de Guatemala (CR)
18. India – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and dust
19. Iraq - Weam Namou: The feminine art
20. Israel – Ephraim Kishon: Oh, oh, Juliet
21. Italy – Umberto Eco: Der Name der Rose (The name of the rose)
22. Kyrgyzstan – Chinghiz Aitmatov: Jamila
23. Lebanon - Vénus Khoury-Ghata: Les fiancés du Cap-Ténès (CR)
24. Madagascar – Michele Rakotoson: Dadabé
25. Mexico – Laura Esquivel: Como agua para chocolate
26. Mongolia – Galsan Tschinag: Die Karawane (NFY)
27. Morocco – Tahar Ben Jelloun: Harrouda (CR)
28. Netherlands – Anne Frank: Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (Diary of a young girl)
29. New Zealand - Katherine Mansfield: Stories
30. Nicaragua – Gioconda Belli: El pergamino de la seduccion (The scroll of seduction)
31. Nigeria – Sefi Atta: Swallow
32. Peru – Mario Vargas Llosa: El sueño del Celta (The dream of the Celt)
33. Poland – Stanislaw Lem: Stories
34. Russia – Mikhail Bulgakov: Master and Margerita
35. Senegal – Ousmane Sembene: Guelwaar
36. Sierra Leone - Aminatta Forna: The memory of love (NFY)
37. Spain – Almudena Grandes: Castillos de carton
38. Sweden – Astrid Lindgren: Pippi Longstocking
39. Switzerland – Max Frisch: Homo faber
40. Syria - Rafik Schami: Die dunkle Seite der Liebe (NFY)
41. United Kingdom – Esther Freud: Lucky break
42. United States – Megan Clark: Seduce me
43. Vietnam - Kim Thuy: ru (NFY)

Own photo of my reading pile some time in early 2014.

PS: I'll keep updating this with any further reading adventures, hoping that one day I can travel around the world in 80 books ... So this post will also serve as a directory to my reviews of world fiction.

obscure composers

The young cellist in my family is currently playing pieces by two composers I had never heard of before, so I did a little research and found that neither of them has a Wikipedia entry - even though their music is in print, and obviously being played today. They are the New Zealander Arnold Trowell, and the Frenchman Benoit Guillemant.

Trowell, at least has a minor role in the wikipedia entry on Katherine Mansfield:

She became enamoured with a cellist, Arnold Trowell (Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell's father),[2] in 1902, although the feelings were largely unreciprocated.[4]
...
Back in London in 1908, Mansfield quickly fell into the bohemian way of life lived by many artists and writers of that era (although she only published one story and one poem during her first 15 months there).[3] Mansfield sought out the Trowell family for companionship, and whilst Arnold was involved with another woman, Mansfield embarked on a passionate affair with his brother, Garnet.[4] By early 1909, she had become impregnated with his child, though Trowell's parents disapproved of the relationship, and the two broke up. She hastily entered into a marriage, with a singing teacher 11 years her elder,[6] George Bowden, on March 2, but left him the same evening, having failed to consummate the marriage.[4] After a brief reunion with Garnet, Mansfield's mother, Annie Beauchamp, arrived in 1909. She blamed the breakdown of the marriage on a lesbian relationship between Mansfield and Ida Baker, and she quickly had her daughter despatched to a spa town, Bad Wörishofen, in Bavaria, Germany. Mansfield had miscarried the child after attempting to lift a suitcase on top of a cupboard, although it is not known whether her mother knew of this miscarriage when she left shortly after arriving in Germany (Mansfield was subsequently cut out of her mother's will).[4]

More about his career as a composer is here

About Guillemant, we only know that he worked as a flautist and composer in Paris, 1746-57. Nothing is known about his life before or after this period. That's quite remarkable - I have ancestors in the 18th century about whom we know more ...

Still, someone should have a heart and compose Wikipedia entries for obscure composers like these ...