Welcome to Saturday, May 23, 2026.
Posting will probably be limited to this very short Hili today; I am dispirited because the brood of nine mallards (plus mom) that I rescued yesterday was driven out of the pond area by aggressive mallards. I do not know if they will return. This is of course the second time this has happened, and it may well be a duckless summer. I will show pictures when I can bear to look at them.
The drakes are simply too aggressive and mean to permit new broods in the pond; there are too many of them and they attack the mother.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 23 Wikipedia page.
So that this won’t be a total loss, I invite readers to weigh in on any topic of their choice: ducks, the war, Trump, Nicholas Kristof’s (and his editor’s) response to his column on Israeli abuse of Palestinian prisoners, the new rules on getting a green card (the Administration has made them much harder to get; you have to apply from overseas), and so on. Anything goes, but be civil, please.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili notices a disparity between the cats’ breakfast and Andrzej’s.
Szaron: He’s eating breakfast.
Hili: And he thinks we’ve already eaten enough.
In Polish:
Szaron: On je śniadanie.
Hili: I sądzi, że myśmy się już najedli
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
A Dutch Jewish mother and her son were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was five years old. https://t.co/6RKhE3rLgu
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 23, 2026
Oh no, that’s sad to hear about the pond – Nature! – well, I guess we just have to see what happens next …
My president is amazing! My truck used to hold $59 worth of gas. Now it holds $120 worth. . . I don’t know how he does it, but I’m voting for him again!
That’s nothing! Our amazing president has turned the Strait of Hormuz into the Schrodinger’s Hormuz, which is simultaneously open and closed. Is there no limit to what this man is capable of?
My pantry and fridge used to only hold 120 dollars’ worth of groceries. The last time I unpacked my groceries after a trip to the store, I discovered they’ve expanded to hold 160 dollars’ worth! Hail Trump!
I like this thread!
Somehow it helps. Not really, but it feels good to chuckle.
Well, he certainly is worth laughing at!
So that’s what was going on…I saw you on live duck cam yesterday afternoon flushing several drakes from the canal area behind a tree. The newly renovated and denuded pool seems to have very little natural cover for mom and baby protection.
I was just thinking about that. There used to be trees right in the pond (if I remember correctly), so the family could find shelter and rest without having to leave the pond.
Hopefully the drakes will find a new place to hang around before Vashti’s eggs hatch.
When I tuned into the duck pond this morning, I saw Armon (at least I hope it was him, and not some undocumented criminal drake) swimming by his lonesome. Then I saw another duck fly in and splash down right next to him. I hope it was Vashti, taking a break from brooding. So, there is still hope for a new generation this year. The trick of course is to keep them in the pond.
As Jim above suggests, perhaps the hens are leaving because there is so little natural cover that they don’t feel safe. If that’s true, maybe you could provide some artificial shelter.
One idea could be a duck tube. They’re usually built for nesting and suspended above the ground, but I don’t see why they couldn’t provide shelter for hens and ducklings if they were placed on the ground instead. They look easy to make, too. E.g., this video has directions: Duck Tubes and how to build them. Also, this.
All you need is 7 feet of 1 x 2 inch coated garden fencing that is 36 inches wide, heavy duty zip-ties, and flax straw or pine straw. (And heavy gloves, too, as anyone who has ever worked with chicken wire knows from sad experience!). Also, they’re fairly ‘natural’ looking, so I don’t think facilities could object too much.
Of course, I don’t know if it would solve the problem.
I can’t put stuff in the pond; that is the call of Facilities. And, of course, as you said, this might not solve the problem. I doubt, in fact, that this would work. The family has to be on the pond, and that is where they are vulnerable to aggression.
Surely though, you of all people professor, are familiar with the horrors and challenges of a “duck on duck world”, particularly their … reproduction dynamics.
I’m very tempted to check on the duck cam but I’m not sure I have the emotional bandwidth – particularly since the goings on there are more dramatic and fatal than a Greek tragedy!
It is good, I must note, that we have our best man on it! Keep us appraised.
D.A.
NYC🗽
Have you considered dealing with the aggressive ducks by using a large net, a Wok and appropriate source.
Whoever said that history doesn’t repeat itself but that it rhymes certainly was on the mark. I’m watching yet another documentary about the rise of the Nazis (“Liviing With Hitler” on Amazon Prime) and the parallels with the current administration are glaring. Equally disturbing is the (very lengthy) article in the current Atlantic Monthly about the men who want to take away many of women’s rights in this country.
On a lighter note, why did producers and engineers insist on recording opera singers so close to the mic? Even on the highest-end audio systems the sound is unpleasant to my ears.
Finally, my vote for most beautiful short piece of music: the opening and closing aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations (and on a harpsichord, please!).
Well, I’m a classical music recording engineer as well as a faithful WEIT reader so you came to the right place!
If you’re talking about live performance opera recordings, the problem is those singers just won’t stand in one spot! They don’t always face the same direction, either. But TV and radio listeners want to hear a clear and consistent sound, with intelligible words– so where am I supposed to place the microphone? A solution is to equip each one with a discreet wireless mic concealed in the costume or hair or some place — then we can get a nice clean sound no matter the stage antics. But the downside is what you describe — the mic can sound too close. The engineer can and should compensate for that by applying audio processing tools such as artificial reverberation.
There has never been a standard for what the “correct” microphone distance is, voice/instruments balance, or even, a century later, what we actually mean by “stereo”. Each of these just comes down to a matter of taste. A lot of recording engineers came up through commercial music in studios, so that’s influenced what they think sounds “right”. And then the prevalence of a studio sort of sound means the rest of us also accept that as “normal”.
Seeing as you’re a fan of Bach performed on historic keyboard instruments, allow me to recommend my recording of Charlotte Moersch playing the lautenwerk.
On the subject of recording techniques and technology there’s a brilliant documentary series on the earliest days of electronic recording and the musicians of the time called American Epic. Associated with that is a stand-alone documentary called The American Epic Sessions, in which an original recording system from the 1920s is restored and used to record modern artists performing mostly songs of the time. They only had one microphone so working out how to place performers around it could get very tricky – Beck with a small gospel choir being particularly awkward. For all that, the music that comes out of the sessions sounds amazing. I’ve watched it multiple times and bought the vinyl LP that went with it. Highly recommended.
On the subject of early recording techniques, you might be interested in Alan Blumlein. Wikipedia has a good article about him.
Thanks, sounds like a really interesting guy. I see in his early career he worked for Western Electric, who produced the equipment featured in American Epic.
Thanks, Peter. Yes, I was referring to only opera on records, CDs, and digital streaming. I just don’t hear the illusion of the space in which it is recorded. It’s a pity the gold standard for classical recordings was not codified with the minimalist approach defined by the team at Mercury Living Presence in the late 50s and early 60s. What I wouldn’t give to have all my records embedded with the sounds of Mercury, RCA Living Stereo, and Lyrita. I feel fortunate to have as many of them now as I do. I’ll see if I can listen to Ms. Moersch on Qobuz.
While I find it impossible to name a single “most” beautiful piece, on most days I would choose the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2.
Yes, gorgeous. If the suites were the only recordings you were allowed to have, you’d still be in heaven.
Maybe for further discussion, I heard the tail end of something on NPR this morning, on how D-Day really came down to a weather forecaster on the W coast of Ireland, and how US v British weather forecasting took dramatically differing approaches back then.
If Ike had gone on June 5 v 6 it would have been a colossal disaster because of a mega-storm. Apparently there’s a movie about this, and I guess a preceding book, but I didn’t get those details.
I heard the same NPR bit. There is a much-advertised movie coming out about this aspect of D-day. At the time, the US had an old-fashioned weather forecasting system, while the Brits were coming around to understanding the existence of the jet stream.
As I recall from James Keegan’s Six Armies in Normandy, the invasion was on for 6 June, with all the ports on the south coast of England locked down and the infantry cooped up incommunicado in the troopships hoping the weather would lift. The forecast for the 6th looked continuing rotten; Gen. Eisenhower was close to calling it off. He would have had to let the thousands of men out of the ships and surely word would leak out. But the British Met Office came (bravely!) forward with an optimistic forecast, something of a minority report, for partial let-up. Eisenhower agonized and finally decided to go.
Once the paratroopers took off on the evening of the 5th there was no turning back, as the infantry had to follow them in. (That’s probably why Ike drove out to the embarkation airfield to talk to the men of the 101st Airborne Division man-to-man in that famous photo.) As it was, the overcast over the French coast scattered the 101st and 82nd around the Cotentin Peninsula and rendered the aerial bombardment of Omaha Beach useless. But Ike’s gamble paid off.
Had the invasion been scrubbed, says Keegan, the next propitious conjunction of moon and tide would have been 19 June, the day that a Force 8 gale did tear up the Channel and did major damage to beach installations. Had the invasion fleet been caught in the Channel it would have been a colossal disaster indeed.
On 24-25 March 1944, north winds estimated at 130 mph disrupted an RAF bombing raid against Berlin, (the last gasp of the unsuccessful winter-long offensive against the German capital), resulting in heavy losses to the scattered bomber force and little damage done to the city, (“The Night of the Strong Winds”.) These winds may have been part of the jet stream system. It might be — speculating here — that their propensity to blow at night that winter while the USAAF daylight operations over Germany were suspended after the disaster of Schweinfurt II gave British weather forecasters an edge in experience with high-altitude winds.
Speaking of those scattered paratroopers dropped the night before D-Day – I was recently in the town of St. Mere-Eglise where hanging from the steeple is a parachute with an effigy of paratrooper John Steele dangling from it. If you’ve seen the movie The Longest Day you may recall the famous scene with Red Buttons playing Steele. Steele reportedly visited the town several times after the war.
Sad to hear about the ducklings and
their mother chased from the pond.
Today is World Turtle Day. Worth
watching is the 1985 film Turtle Diary,
with Ben Kingsley, Glenda Jackson,
Michael Gabon and two grand turtles.
Maybe of interest (access is free):
Gerald M. Steinberg: What Is the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor? Quillette, May 20, 2026
Creating NGOs that misuse the language of human rights is an effective strategy for advancing terrorist goals.
https://quillette.com/2026/05/20/what-is-the-euro-med-human-rights-monitor-nicholas-kristof-new-york-times-israel-gaza-hamas/
Nicholas Kristof’s 11 May New York Times column (“The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians”) and its accompanying video demonstrate the halo effect that protects many non-governmental organisations from the scrutiny they deserve. In addition to the testimony provided by security prisoners (suspected or convicted terrorists) released from Israeli prisons, Kristof’s essay relies upon quotes from unverifiable NGO reports or statements, and from a United Nations committee that recycles the accusations those statements and reports contain.
I follow a couple of sources on the news biz and they both find it very strange that this explosive story of Kristof has received zero attention from the news side of NYT.
Does it indicate that they’re suspicious of it? Who knows.
There was a short news bit from NPR that a flotilla of Europeans heading to Gaza, carrying aid, was intercepted by Israel. The detainees came out saying they were beaten and sexually abused by the IDF. I won’t repeat the details.
I know. I know! But they have learned how to work the crowd.
Oh, yes… There were a handful of Canadians among that scruffy group and it is being played here for all it’s worth. 50 boats and 400 turd herders it was, that’s enough to tie down a significant number of Israeli coastal patrol boats and officers who had to process them all, with maybe a little impatient corporal discipline tossed in to deter the copy-cats. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, laid it on a little thick and got reprimanded by PM Netanyahu. I’m surprised any activists would even dare let themselves fall into the hands of the IDF and their rape dogs. Geez, did they not get the memo?
I saw one photo of an “abused” activist’s back and to be honest they looked more like hickeys. There’s a traditional Chinese remedy called “cupping” that leaves similar marks from the suction. A few bruises, too, yes.
All safely deported to Turkiye last I heard. Some unfortunately decided to come home to Canada. 🙁 Though some went from Turkiye to “other destinations.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/canadians-from-gaza-flotilla-return-to-canada-after-detainment-by-israeli-forces/ar-AA23Th96?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=d9ede37b6fed431ae2079325503f7f7f&ei=11
Someone just posted on the “Hyde Park Classics” site that there was group of ducklings in a window well near the Classics Building. I suggested that they contact you.