About the Ghost Turtles
150 years after Robert Duncanson painted this luminist scene on the Little Miami River, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began. Read more
Ecology of the Senses
Returning to Lake Superior year after year like a migrating loon, I’ve learned the other side of a slow, uncertain process that could be called “going blind.” With the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read more.Prayer at Big Creek
![Sandhill cranes land on Platte River sandbar roosts west of Rowe Sanctuary’s Iain Nicolson Audubon Center southwest of Gibbon, Nebraska. [Photo by Lori Porter| Kearney Hub]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/sandhill_cranes_kearneyhub_032015-300x225.jpg)
At the threshold of consciousness, as I slipped back and forth between two worlds, I put my mind in the best place I could imagine, a marsh on Lake Erie called Big Creek. I knew I’d find cranes waiting for me. I cannot say whether I prayed for them, or to them, or with them. The cant of words doesn’t matter. I believe in the still, small voice. I believe what the poet Yehuda Amichai said. Gods come and go. Prayer is eternal. Read moreFreedom to Read
![An endangered Whooping crane takes flight. Yhe large bird has a 7-foot wingspan. It is all white except for black wing tips and face markings. In this photo its long neck stretches forward; its wings sweep upward; and its black legs trail straight behind it. [Source: International Crane Foundation]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Whooping-crane-eastern-ICF-080622-300x157.jpg)
Whenever I hear sanctimonious pronouncements about woke, parental rights, and banning books, I think of Whooping cranes. In my family, the gawky, audacious, elusive and endangered birds are synonymous with our values about the First Amendment and the freedom to read. Read more.Sister, Teacher, Pathfinder
A guidance counselor in high school told my sister Diana, “With your eye problems you will never make it in college. Just forget about it. Get married. Raise a family.” That advice only deepened her determination. She did it all in due time, in her own way –college, marriage, family. She became a guidance counselor herself. She certainly was the most important guide and pathfinder in my life. Read more.Flaneur & Bouquiniste
![Mark Willis peruses a 1745 volume by Voltaire at a bouquiniste book stall on the banks of the Seine in Paris. He wears a brown leather jacket and checkered flat cap. He holds the open book in his hands. Rows of old books are seen on shelves behind him. [2005 photo by Ms. Modigliani]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/mw_bouquiniste_05-300x225.jpg)
I remember the book I held in my hands that day. I remember the feel of its time-warped, water-stained pages. I remember its murky, moldy river smell, call it the book’s bouquet, suggesting years of storage on the banks of the Seine. Had I bought it then, I could feel and smell it now and know it from a hundred other books in my library. Read more.R & K: A Rant
Marjorie Taylor Green auditioned for R&K’s Authoritarian It Girl at the 2023 State of the Union address. She and her Republican colleagues yelled like Tarzan swinging through the trees as they jeered and booed the President’s speech. Read Rants & Kisses.R & K: A Kiss
Songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Singers like Dione Warwick and Dusty Springfield. What Do You Get When You Fall in Love? The Look of Love. I Say a Little Prayer. I sit in the car’s back seat and listen. I’m glad it’s dark. I’d be embarrassed if anyone could see the dreamy look on my face. Read Rants & Kisses.
Author Archives: Mark Willis
“Snake Salvation” Won’t Save Any Snakes
Snake Salvation | National Geographic Channel Fall 2013 In the hills of Appalachia, Pentecostal pastors Jamie Coots and Andrew Hamblin struggle to keep an over-100-year-old tradition alive: the practice of handling deadly snakes in church. Jamie and Andrew believe in … Continue reading
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Internet Naturalist – October 6, 2013
Why Dippers Dip | Audubon Magazine 093013 [This story comes to you through a partnership between Audubon and BirdNote, a show that airs daily on public radio stations nationwide.] An American Dipper calls across a rushing mountain stream. Its rotund, … Continue reading
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Internet Naturalist – September 30, 2013
Video: Northern Goshawk Flight in Slow Motion | Audubon Magazine Blog 091613 Alisa Opar: “The northern goshawk is an incredible aerialist. The bird inhabits dense northern forests and maneuvers through impossibly tight spaces in pursuit of prey. A fierce hunter, … Continue reading
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Tagged birds, flight, links, whales
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Blue Hole, Little Miami River (1851)
You can see this painting in a darkened, ornate gallery at the Cincinnati Art Museum. And you can see the place depicted here anytime in Clifton Gorge. The scene looks surprisingly close to what Robert Duncanson saw in 1851. Trees have grown back on the hilltop where the painter stood. State park managers have built a fence with pressure-treated lumber at the river’s edge, as if it could keep skinny-dippers or immersion Baptists from wading in the water. But the river’s outflow at the painting’s focal point still looks as primordial and revelatory as the day the last glacier retreated. Continue reading
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Tagged Clifton Gorge, landscape art, Little Miami River, Luminists, Robert S. Duncanson
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Internet Naturalist – September 22, 2013
Sage Grouse Strut their Stuff – YouTube This video was taken at the Mount Biedeman Wilderness Study Area in the Bodie Hills. The strutting grouse sound like coffee percolators. This is one of the larger leks; BLM wildlife crew counted … Continue reading
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Internet Naturalist – September 9, 2013
Interview: John Bradshaw, Author Of ‘Cat Sense’ : NPR 090513 Cats have come a long way from being animals charged with catching mice to treasured, adorable creatures that snuggle with us in our beds. But this relatively new arrangement is … Continue reading
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Internet Naturalist – September 1, 2013
This young whooping crane is on its first fall migration, guided by an Operation Migration ultralight aircraft. Each whooper in this population wears an identification band, and many carry tracking devices that record their movements in detail. [Source:Joe Duff/Operation Migration … Continue reading
