WINTERLONG

[For you] the fragrant-blossomed Muses' lovely gifts
[be zealous] girls, [and the ] clear melodious lyre.

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark.

My heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I bemoan, but what's to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn
love smitten, carried him off to the world's end

handsome and young then, get in time grey age
o'ertook him, husband of immortal wife.


Poem:  Sappho, Fragment 58, from Köln Ms., Martin West translation, 2005. 

Winterlong -- Neil Young (Link).

Image:  Clark Blickensderfer, Ptarmigan In Winter, From Pictorial Photography In America, 1922.

Ornicopia 4 -- Can any birds walk easily on snow?

 

478.  Can any birds walk easily on snow?

When autumn comes, ptarmigan and some other species of grouse grow appendages on their toes which act as snowshoes in winter.

White-tailed Ptarmigan

477.  Are there any birds that cannot walk? 

A common loon really cannot walk.  It progresses on land chiefly by pushing itself along with its breast on the ground.  Grebes walk poorly.  The small weak feet of swifts and hummingbirds make walking very difficult or impossible, but even those birds can push themselves across a level surface.

  

Great Northern Loon nesting in Maine

Diving Grebe

479. Are the feet of any birds feathered?

While the tarsus and toes of a bird are usually covered with scales, some birds are feathered on the tarsus and a few species even have feathered toes.  Many owls are feathered to the claws.  Ptarmigan have feathered feet.  Some hawks, particularly the rough-legged hawk, and some eagles, particularly the golden eagle, have a feathered tarsus.

Long-eared owl

Rough-legged Hawk

 Golden Eagle

Spotted Owl yawning

Text from:  1001 Questions Answered About Birds by Allan D. Cruickshank and Helen G. Cruickshank (Toronto, General Publishing Company, 1958)