Starship Asterisk*

[i]Photographs courtesy Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos (ECOAN)/ABC[/i]

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A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means "strange owl" has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday.

Conservationists working in Peru got their first natural glimpse of the long-whiskered owlet last month while working in a private mountain reserve.

The species wasn't even known to exist until 1976, and since then the only known living specimens have been those caught in nets at night.

"Seeing the long-whiskered owlet is a huge thrill," said David Geale of Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos, who was part of the research team, in a press statement.

The American Bird Conservancy, which partnered in the research, described the sighting as "a holy grail" of bird biology.

As few as 250 of the owlets are thought to exist, scientists said, and the birds are as distinctive as they are rare.

With their diminutive size, bright orange eyes, and wild, wispy facial feathers, the dainty birds belong to their own genus, dubbed Xenoglaux, or "strange owl."

The owlets owe much of their survival to the remoteness of their dense mountain habitat, the researchers said. But as human activity encroaches on Peru's northern forests, the birds' future looks dimmer.

"Due to the rapid destruction of its forest habitat and its tiny range, it is inferred that the species is in serious decline," Geale said.

"Until recently, the owlets key habitat was completely unprotected."

— Blake de Pastino

orin stepanek wrote:http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?location=North+America

Beyond wrote:
I would have thought it would have been "YHOOTY" instead of "YTUTY", but then it wouldn't be the same spelled backwards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehudi_Menuhin wrote:

Yehudi Menuhin (from the film Stage Door Canteen, 1943)

<<The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Yehudi Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin.

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is often considered to have been one of the twentieth century's greatest violin virtuosi.

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City, New York, to Bielorussian Jewish parents from what is now Belarus. The name Yehudi means 'Jew' in Hebrew. In an interview published in October 2004, he recounted to New Internationalist magazine the story of his name: "Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew.""

Yehudi Menuhin performed for allied soldiers during World War II, and went with the composer Benjamin Britten to perform for inmates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after its liberation in April 1945. He returned to Germany in 1947 to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, becoming the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany. He said to critics within the Jewish community that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit.

In 1991 he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the Israeli Knesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank with these words,

"This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."

His recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999 at age 82. In total he recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor.>>

orin stepanek wrote:
A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?

geckzilla wrote:I guy I know from the art forum I visit a lot did this recently:

Click to view full size image

....Want it on a t-shirt?