Reposted by BookKnifeBookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/07/2026"Accidents will happen even with the best-regulated secret police." Anthony Powell, BOOKS DO FURNISH A ROOM, 1971 (book 10 in the series "A Dance to the Music of Time). #booksky 011
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 22h"And law was hardly less absurd to him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the many." Anthony Trollope, MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY, 1883. #booksky 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Diary entry in May 1939: "What is the heart? A damp cave with things growing in it, mysterious secret plants of love or whatever you like. Or a dusty lumber room full of junk. Or a neat orderly place like a desk ..." Barbara Pym, A VERY PRIVATE EYE, ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Walton, 1984. #booksky 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 09/10/2026 "Yes, indeed, sir. She and her father have been quarrelling for the last ten years, and now she's off. She was always riding and roystering [sic] about the country with them dogs and them men; and now she's gone." Anthony Trollope, MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY, 1883. #booksky #novelinasentence 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 09/10/2026 "She's gone off with young Farmer Tazlehurst." "Miss Puffle gone off, and with her father's tenant's son!" Anthony Trollope, MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY, 1883. #booksky #novelinasentence 141
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Shoveler: "Male has staring yellow eye." Roger Tory Peterson, Guy Mountfort, and P. A. D. Hollom, A FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF BRITAIN AND EUROPE, 1993. #booksky #birds 050
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026House finches appeared on the east coast in the 1940s, when pet shops there imported them from California and sold them as "Hollywood finches." From BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, James Cassidy et al., 1990. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"The male's breakneck, 100-foot display dive creates an explosive pop as it pulls up just short of the perched female." Jonathan Alderfer and Paul Hess, BACKYARD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, 2011. #booksky #birds 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"Anna, duchess of Rivoli, could hardly have asked for a more stunning namesake." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 130
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"It is rather a sedentary bird, spending much of its time on rocks just above high-water mark; in diving it moves almost entirely by means of its feet, the wings being kept closely folded to its side." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"They are most bold and noisy in defence of their young, flying close round an intruder's head, and uttering their alarm-note unceasingly." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #booksky #birds 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"In Florida, where they like to winter, red-bellies even use this adaptable instrument to draw the succulent juice and pulp from oranges." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"...the most spectacular feature of a woodpecker is its unbelievably long, cylindrical tongue, which can be extended to an amazing length. The tip ... is hard and pointed for spearing such insects as grasshoppers and beetles, and sticky with a gluey saliva for lapping up ants." #booksky #birds 120
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"They are most bold and noisy in defence of their young, flying close round an intruder's head, and uttering their alarm-note unceasingly." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Common type: "Susan was forceful in her personality and trendy in her dress." Barbara Pym, AN ACADEMIC QUESTION, 1986. #booksky 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"Diving into the water [the dipper] reaches the bottom by the aid of both wings and feet, and when there progresses, apparently, by its feet alone. ... [In flight] it almost invariably follows the course of the stream." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #booksky #birds 000
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026 "By 1971 cattle egrets were nesting as far north as Minnesota and as far west as California." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"Once limited to southern Europe, Africa, and Asia, this species is thought to have made an Atlantic Ocean crossing in the late 1870's, between Africa and Surinam, in South America." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 110
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"...the male song sparrow will sing as many as 20 different melodies on a morning in May. And by the time the day is over he may have improvised nearly 1,000 variations on his basic themes." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"Of course my circle is circumscribed. I have been very careful whom I have admitted to my intimacy, and the result is that I know almost nobody." Anthony Trollope, MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY, 1883. #booksky (As so often in Trollope, this is funny but also tragic.) 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Great skua: "... also known by its Norse name, bonxie ... Bonxies mercilessly chase down smaller seabirds carrying fish to make them drop their catch, whereupon the bonxie swoops underneath and catches the prey item in a tactic known as kleptoparisitism." Mark Rowe, ORKNEY, 2024. 2/2 #booksky #birds 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Skuas (group of species): "Behaviour piratical, chasing other birds until they disgorge." Roger Tory Peterson, Guy Mountfort, and P. A. D. Hollom, A FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF BRITAIN AND EUROPE, 1993. #booksky #birds 1/2 120
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Trying to understand people and leaving them alone and being 'unselfish' and all *that* jazz has only the bleakest of rewards - precisely nothing!" Letter to Bob Smith, Feb. 16, 1967. Barbara Pym, A VERY PRIVATE EYE, ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Walton, 1984. #booksky 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Aggressive loners for most of the year, belted kingfishers tolerate others of their kind only during the summer nesting season. But then, for a few weeks, the mated pairs work together as well-disciplined teams." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Like the Pied Wagtail it is a partial migrant, seeking the warmer portions of the south and west during the winter and moving back to the same rushing streams with the return of spring." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #booksky #birds 010
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Average in size and structure, but the tail is impressively large. The narrow tips of the male's outer primary feathers produce a trilling noise in flight, often the first indication of its presence." J. Alderfer & P. Hess, BACKYARD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, 2011. #booksky #birds 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"This bird is one of the handsomest and at the same time our rarest member of the Crow family. With its glossy black plumage and brilliant red legs and beak it forms a beautiful sight ... " J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. (Is the Chough still as rare as he describes?) #booksky #birds 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"We fear he is rather pampered but certainly the object of interest and amusement. It never does to ask after his health or he will tell you." Letter to Bob Smith, Dec. 31, 1970. Barbara Pym, A VERY PRIVATE EYE, ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Walton, 1984. #booksky 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"[B]ecause Anton was a German I didn't feel as if I were being unfaithful to my real love. Somehow I could never take a German very seriously, but they are glorious to flirt with." [Diary entry, June 17, 1934] Barbara Pym, A VERY PRIVATE EYE, ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Walton, 1984. #booksky 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026This explains SO MUCH about the British upper classes between the two world wars: #booksky 120
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Audubon found this bird along the Arkansas River and named it "Empidonax traillii", after Dr. Thomas Traill, founder of the Royal Institution of Liverpool. From BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, James Cassidy et al., 1990. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"The western [meadowlark] usually sings five to seven notes; his voice [is] rich and fluting and gurgling, and his songs sounds confident and self-assured." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 140
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"They look as though they would be able to say a clever thing; but their spoken thoughts seldom rise above a small acrid sharpness." Anthony Trollope, MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY, 1883. #booksky 020
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"There are at present a number of young men about who think that few girls are worth the winning, but that any girl is to be had, not by asking,--which would be troublesome,--but simply by looking at her. You can see the feeling in their faces." #booksky 120
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Grey lag goose: "There is some doubt as to the origin of the name Grey Lag, but it is now generally conceded to have been applied to this species because it lagged behind after the other Geese had gone to their breeding quarters in the north." J. Lewis Bonhote, BIRDS OF BRITAIN, 1907. #birds 000
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Diary entry for October 10, 1933: "An amusing lecture in the morning - Professor Tolkien on Beowulf." Barbara Pym, A VERY PRIVATE EYE, ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Walton, 1984. #booksky 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026W. L. Dawson describes the male yellow-headed blackbird's song as "a wail of despairing agony which would do credit to a dying catamount," in contrast with its extravagant courtship display. From James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 041
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"At least two days before killdeer babies peck their way out of their shells they are conversing in peeps and learning to understand the voices of their parents." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 041
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"No one knows why the nuthatches do this or what use it may serve--unless the stickiness prevents ants from entering the nest." (Maybe someone has figured this out since 1990!) James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990 #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Nesting red-breasted nuthatches "take droplets of resin, or pitch, from balsam fir, spruce, or pine trees and smear it all around the entrance of their nesting cavity." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990 #booksky #birds 130
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"The wine and the surroundings had not made him gallant, intimate or flirtatious. He was, if anything, more than ever like his dull everyday self." Barbara Pym, AN ACADEMIC QUESTION, 1986. #booksky 020
Reposted by BookKnifeBookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 09/07/2025Another common type from Northanger Abbey: Mrs. Allen, whose "vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent …” #booksky I swear I know at least five or six people like this. 021
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"...at a winter feeding station the male may step aggressively toward his mate, but she usually steps aside or ignores him and goes on feeding." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 040
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"The curious name--waxwing--derives from the bright red, waxy secretions produced at the tips of the secondary wing feathers. Their function, if any, is unknown." Jonathan Alderfer and Paul Hess, BACKYARD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, 2011. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"...the instant the downy, daintily striped [California quail] chick is free of its shell, it is on its feet and ready to go. In fact, chicks have been seen to flee from danger with pieces of eggshell still sticking to them." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 030
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"Approaching us fearlessly, regarding the world with a curious eye, and raising its crest to a jaunty angle, the bird attracts attention wherever it goes. Small wonder that Mexicans call it *paisano*, or 'countryman.'" James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 050
BookKnife @bookknife.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"[It wields] its long pointed bill with the speed and skill of a swordsman. Even the intrepid John James Audubon once plunged into a river up to his neck to escape the wrath of a crane with a broken wing ..." James Cassidy et al., BOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 1990. #booksky #birds 161
