Accidentals and Rare Vagrants

Wedge-Shaped Shearwater, a Pacific tropical seabird listed as an "accidental".

“These are birds that have been recorded only as accidental vagrants in the region, and are either not described or mentioned only marginally in the main text. They all originate from areas beyond, and sometimes well beyond, the region.  Most are simply lost migrants, blown off course by adverse winds.”

 

Von Schrenk's Bittern, another accidental first noted in Italy in 1912, hails from China and Siberia.

This excerpt from Collins Pocket Guide Birds of Britain and Europe precedes a listing of dozens of “accidentals” found in Europe – birds presumably from North America, the Caribbean, Southern Asia or Eastern Africa -- including seabirds, wildfowl, shore birds, swallows, martins, finches and sparrows.  Lewington, Alström and Colston’s Field Guide to the Rare Birds of Britain and Europe is recommended as a source for further reading and research.

I, and I suspect a lot of people, find Collins’ text very affecting.  Everyone feels at times like a lost migrant, blown off course by adverse winds.

The “accidental” Diederik Cuckoo breeds in Africa south of the Sahara desert.

This weekend we’ll be visiting the southern New Jersey shore (link) again, as we try to do every year.  A number of seasons ago we discovered our own “accidental” – a Green Wood Hoopoe that I once wrote about here, who I imagine must have escaped from the Cape May County Zoo following a bad storm in 2010.  At the time we noticed him, he had actually adopted (or been adopted) into a family of birds.  It would be nice to see him again. 

  

A family of Green Wood Hoopoes, a near-passerine formerly known as the Red-Billed Wood Hoopoe, in their native Botswana habitat.



Who Knows Where The Time Goes? -- Fairport Convention (Link)

 

Philadelphia Baedeker: Rembrandt And The Face Of Jesus Opens Today At PMA; The Shore Beckons

      

By: Joann Loviglio, Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) 

A new exhibit coming to the Philadelphia Museum of Art takes a fresh look at religious paintings, drawings and prints by one of history's most revered artists.

        "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" debuts Wednesday in Philadelphia, after its three-month premiere run at the Louvre Museum in Paris. It's the only East Coast stop for the exhibit, which continues through Oct. 30 and contains works from public and private collections in the U.S. and Europe.

          The exhibition of more than 50 works by the Dutch master and his pupils notably includes a group of oil paintings of Jesus Christ that have not been seen together since they left Rembrandt's Amsterdam studio in 1656.

          Timothy Rub, chief executive officer and director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, called the show "a rare moment to observe the image of Jesus through the imagination of this artistic genius whose life was devoted to representations of biblical truths."

        Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) revolutionized the artistic portrayal of biblical themes, which for more than 1,000 years rigidly represented Christ as an unemotional and formalized figure. These "true" images of Jesus were copied from ancient prototypes, in part to avoid violating the Second Commandment that forbids idolatry, until Rembrandt broke with time-honored artistic convention and began using live models.

          Still more radical was his use of a model who many historians believe was a Jewish man likely from Rembrandt's Amsterdam neighborhood — where many Sephardic Jews settled after fleeing the Iberian Peninsula during the Inquisition. In the seven reunited oil on oak panel paintings that are the cornerstone of the exhibit, Rembrandt's young model conveys a variety of thoughtful gazes that bring him to life in a way no artist had done before — and departs from the then-customary depiction of him as sandy haired and fair skinned.

         "This was very likely the first time in the history of Christian art that Jesus appeared to be Jewish," curator Lloyd De Witt said. He added that seeing all of the works together provides ample evidence for "moving this previously marginalized group of panels back to the center of a discussion about Rembrandt's theology, spirituality and expressive power."

          Rembrandt used at least two of the small "Head of Christ" portraits as sources for later paintings now recognized as among his greatest works: "Supper at Emmaus" — last seen in the U.S. in 1936 — and "The Hundred Guilder Print," also on view in the exhibition.


"Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" will make its final stop at the Detroit Institute of Arts from Nov. 20 until Feb. 12


NOTE:  If you believe you can face the Demi-Hell of Philadelphia in the summer, you should hustle on up, down or across to view and re-view what sounds like a marvelous exhibition of paintings at our great Philadelphia Museum of Art.  By late September, the weather will cool down a bit and you might think of supplementing your trip with an excursion to the southern New Jersey beaches (Avalon, Stone Harbor or Cape May), where it's Heaven On Earth through at least mid-October.