A thread of very good, wonderful, truly Super Bowls.

Translucent agate bowl with ornamental grooves and coffee-and-cream marbling. Found near Qift in southern Egypt. 300 - 1,000 BC. 📷 Getty Museum https://t.co/W1HfQZIG2V

Technicolor dreambowl, found in a grave near Zadar on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. Made by melding and winding thin bars of glass, each adulterated with different minerals to get different colors. 1st century AD. 📷 Zadar Museum of Ancient Glass https://t.co/H9VfNrXKQK

100,000-year-old abalone shells used to mix red ocher, marrow, charcoal, and water into a colorful paste. Possibly the oldest artist's palettes ever discovered. Blombos Cave, South Africa. 📷https://t.co/0fMeYlOsXG

Reed basket bowl with shell and feather ornaments. Possibly from the Southern Pomo or Lake Miwok cultures. Found in Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1770. 📷 British Museum https://t.co/F4Ix0mXAu6

Wooden bowl with concentric circles and rounded rim, most likely made of umbrella thorn acacia (Vachellia/Acacia tortilis). Qumran. 1st Century BCE. 📷 https://t.co/XZCw67Ho03

The American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus), aka water ouzel, is North America's only truly aquatic songbird—the "hummingbird of blooming waters" as Muir wrote

Dippers flit about rocky streams, diving and swimming through the currents to feed on aquatic larvae and tiny tadpoles/fish

American dippers are named for their habit of rhythmically bobbing when perched

But why do they dip?

Theories incl: blending in w/ turbulent water as camouflage; enhanced scoping of underwater prey; visual communication in noisy

Cornell Lab describes the dipper's burbling song as "evocative of the rushing whitewater streams this species calls home in western North and Central

John Muir was enchanted by the American dipper/water ouzel and included a chapter about them in "The Mountains of California"
https://t.co/4BGX77Rmp9