Medievalist Julia Bolton Holloway forwarded this morning a really spectacular link offering movable views of the interior of the 14th century Roman Catholic Church of St. Emeric (killed at the age of 24, while hunting, by a boar) located in Ghelinţa (Hungarian: Gelence; German: Gälänz) Romania.

Look closer.

These photographs are being widely distributed on the Internet, with the caprids misidentified as Bighorn sheep.

The location is actually Lake Cingino, a reservoir created by adding a dam and enlarging a small lake in the Valley of Antrona in the Italian Alps.

The animals on the dam are -chamois- Alpine Ibex, Capra ibex, who apparently frequent the dam face in search of salts that accumulate on the rocks of the dam.

Maurizio Piazzai has a couple more photos of -chamois- Alpine Ibex on the Lake Cingino dam here.

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Correction:

I had originally misidentified the animals on the dam as chamois, believing that the range of the Alpine Ibex in Italy was still limited to Gran Paradiso National Park. The absence in available photos of any full-horned rams faciliated my misidentification.

This factsheet shows that the current range of Alpine Ibex definitely includes the Valle Antrona.

Thanks to John Burchard for the correction.

I find the Sussman photograph of Box Huckleberry disappointing. It was made in the wrong season to show the plant at best advantage.

Rachel Sussman has spent five years on a personal project photographing living organisms more than 2000 years old.

Sussman photos

14:09 video

Her list surprised me by containing a representative from my home state of Pennsylvania, the Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera. It is a surviving relic of the Ice Age, like the brook trout, and something on the order of 100 colonies have been identified in seven mostly Appalachian states, running from from Pennsylvania to Tennessee.

Wikipedia article

The community at Losh Run, Perry County, Pennsylvania, near the Juniata River, has been estimated to be as much as 13,000 years old, making it the oldest living organism in the United States, second oldest in the world. Only King’s Lomatia, Lomatia tasmanica, a bizarre archaic angiosperm found in 1937 in southwest Tasmania is older. But you don’t get delicious edible berries from a Tasmanian angiosperm.

Perry County, PA site article

Lancaster News article from 1999

Duke article on North Carolina colony

Hat tip to Zoe Pollock.

Lightning hits the Willis Tower (formerly, the Sears Tower) and the Trump Tower in Chicago.

Chicago is a great city for weather watching and photography.

“Thunders and lightnings strike in the dark moody ash cloud over erupting Eyjafjallajökull,” writes photographer Skarphéðinn Þráinsson. (click on image for larger view)

Ron Grossman recently tested the historical knowledge of younger colleagues in the Chicago Tribune’s newsroom with sometimes disastrous results.

I took a quick survey in the newsroom the other day, something between a Rorschach test and a pop quiz, asking younger colleagues to identify an iconic photograph of World War II.

While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn’t quite place it.

“I know I ought to know it,” one co-worker said. “It was in the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers.’ ” Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

Cameron Mortenson, who (there’s no accounting for tastes) actually likes fiberglass fly rods, has a posting (with a slideshow of photos) on the late Robert Traver (John D. Voelker)’s camp at Frenchman’s Pond in winter.

He quotes Voelker, describing a childhood visit in winter to the camp:

I went along on a few of those outings as a kid, and usually wound up skiing around outside while the laughter echoed out of the cabin. I would busy myself by looking at the pond and surrounding woods. Even in the dead of winter the pond would never freeze completely over. Open spots would reveal where a spring bubbled up from below. I would mark those spots in my mind and revisit them on the hot days of late summer. There I would throw hopper patterns with my 8’glass Fenwick six weight that my Grandfather bought me at the local sporting goods store. On occasion, I would be rewarded for my craftiness and provoke a swirl from a large Brookie that had claimed the spot to fin in the cool water.”

Hat tip to Brad Reiter.

That Skull and Bones balloting box was not actually sold. Apparently, Christie’s withdrew it from the sale late last month, IvyGate reports, after receiving a mysterious “title claim.” The Russell Trust has plenty of lawyers.

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Hot Air (one of the most important conservative blogs) has been sold to Salem Communications. Congratulations and good luck.

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As part of the Carnival celebration, preceding the beginning of Lent, in the Spanish village of Laza, “Peliqueiros” or ancient tax collectors, are portrayed wearing warning cowbells and prepared to beat the villagers with sticks. 39 Carnival photos.

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Stratfor: Tradecraft in Dubai Assassination
3:14 video

Tazy atop snowbank

Karen took a few pictures of the dogs playing in the snow yesterday. Uhlan, the 7 month old Tazy, very nearly nailed a small snowbound doe, just before Karen came outside. In photos 9 & 10, he is running again through the track in the deep snow made shortly earlier by his pursuit of the deer. He couldn’t follow it once it got to the driveway and made it into the road. We have an electric fence that keeps our dogs inside the property.

Where exactly we are going to put more snow is not clear.

Cobra Battery at FOB Frontenac, Arghandab, Afghanistan

Michael Yon has a spectacular set of photos of an M777 howitzer battery in action at night.

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Thanks to Lazarus, who corrected my misidentification of the howitzer model.

These photos of a Jack Russell puppy playing with a juvenile wild boar come from a Finnish photo site and were forwarded to a saluki list.

(click on image to link to larger version on original site)

Irish Times 2:59 narrated slide show of a recent day with the Waterford Hunt.