Close Encounters Part 2: Wild Animal Friends in the WUI

Red foxes are the most frequently encountered fox species in Colorado, and while I've encountered a pair of them emerging from bushes on a moonlit evening, and a couple in the driveway, I've never seen one napping peacefully on my lawn.  That's what happened to my photographer friend Virginia Lee in Boulder, not far from a busy street, where she was ready with her camera.  She caught the same fox sleeping in the crook of a backyard tree, and his expression on waking wasn't all that different from a family dog when interrupted mid-nap... 

Meanwhile, just over a hundred miles southwest of Boulder, in Alma, Colorado, the highest incorporated town in the US, somebody was peeking around a garden shed...

That somebody turned out to be an American marten, a mink relative now on the rebound in some areas after being decimated by the fur and logging trades.  These martens enjoy a wide range across Canada and Alaska, but in the American West are only found in forested mountainous regions, including the Rockies, the Sierras and the Cascades, where these smallish omnivores (16 to 31 in. long including a tail averaging 10", up to 3.1 pounds) can find small rodents, birds and berries wherever dense forests remain.

Winter conditions can arrive early at nearly 10,600 feet, and not far from that garden shed in Alma, another small visitor decided to curl up and take a nap. Unlike martens, coyotes are adaptable enough to survive in all the climates and landscapes of North America, including desert, sea coasts and high mountains.  Pups, usually born from March into May, require lots of attention from both parents, as they are initially blind, opening their eyes by the two-week mark and exiting the den to play a week or two later. They are usually weaned by the 8-week mark, leave their parents in the fall, and are fully grown at 12 months.  Adults in this region can weigh 20 to 50 pounds, so this little pup has some way to go...

Fast runners and good swimmers, white-tailed deer are active at dawn and dusk like the mountain lions who can prey on them.  To evade those lions they can run up to 35 mph and jump an 8 foot fence.  Bucks shed antlers annually and weigh up to 300 pounds, does up to 200.  Like the red fox at the beginning of this essay, this one took a liking to Virginia's yard, where the deal seems to be deer-friendly landscaping in exchange for photo ops...

But maybe large ungulates just like following Virginia Lee around. This buck with female companions showed up in the garden area of an Estes Park hotel each day of her stay there. Like all members of the deer family, males grow and shed antlers annually. The antlers come in handy during mating season, when bucks fight over territorial mating rights,  To fuel antler growth and wanderings over territory ranging from hundreds to thousands of acres, elk can eat up to 30 pounds of foliage per day.  Bucks can weigh 700 pounds and stand up to 5 feet at their shoulders, while cows weigh a couple hundred pounds less.  Males famously bugle during mating season (early September to mid-October in Colorado), and elk live in herds divided by gender until mating season. 

Moose are the largest deer relatives, up to 1,800 pounds and 6 to 7 feet at the shoulder for the males.  They can easily eat 70 pounds of food per day.; that food can include grasses, dandelions, clover and aquatic plants, as well as leaves, twigs and buds of trees.  Winter food focuses on those twigs and especially bark.  The word "moose" originates in the Algonquin word for bark stripper.  Moose prefer cold temperatures, and mountainous, wooded areas...

Which included a winter picnic not far from where the marten showed up, a cabin in Alma being renovated by old friends Matt and Beth... 

Though we've seen a mountain lion in a tree and a neighbor saw one in our garden, none of our feline wildlife visitors have posed for a photo like this bobcat perched on a garden wall in Alamo, CA.  Photographer Reiko Fujii caught the graceful cat lounging; they normally hunt for prey ranging from rodents to rabbits and even small deer at dawn and dusk hours.  Perhaps that's why this cat was taking a break...

...which included a tour of the surrounding garden.  Beyond the signature short tails, these North American natives have tufted ears.  They share retractable claws with domestic cats, and also a high strength to weight ratio.  In the case of bobcats, weights range from 8 to 30 pounds.

Great horned owls compete with bobcats, hunting at night for prey ranging from fish, small reptiles, small birds to rabbits rodents and skunks, and this one showed up in the same Alamo garden as the bobcat, ironically the home of the author of "Suburban Owls", right in line with our subject of wild animals in the WUI.  Wingspan is up to 5 ft., despite weight rarely exceeding 5.5 pounds. That would be for a female, which could be 10 to 30 percent larger than a male.  Females have a higher voice than males...

...and this becomes apparent when a mated couple hoots to mark territory.  Great horned owls generally mate for life, and may find another mate only when one dies.  

They are sharp-eyed, opportunistic raptors who prefer to hunt at night, though they sometimes search for prey in winter daylight.

This trio of Anna's hummingbirds didn't seem too worried about receiving a visit from that owl, though owls' diets can include any small plant-eating birds, as well as smaller raptors.  The most populous species of hummingbird on the West Coast, they are happy to visit parks and gardens, especially where humans have added feeders, and trees offering nectar and sites for nesting.  In this case, they're taking advantage of a garden waterfall in Alamo, California, unaware they are visiting Reiko Fujii, who created "Anna's Hummers", a book about them.

Hummingbirds are the only bird species that can fly backwards, owing to a shoulder joint allowing a figure 8 wing motion.  The males among Anna's hummingbirds show the striking red and green color scheme here, while the females are a kind of metallic green on top with gray below, often with smaller red markings on their throats.  Weight is only 3 to 6 grams, with females a bit lighter than males.  Strength is impressive, though, as can be seen below, where a male enjoys a waterfall without being swept over the edge.  We're happy that none of the wild animals featured here are on the endangered list, which may provide a bit of hopeful news for those of us in need of it.

Photo Credits:  

Top & 2nd from top:  Virginia Lee Zukowski

3rd thru 5th from top:  Matt Kennan

6th & 7th from top:  Virginia Lee Zukowski

8th & 9th:  Matt Kennan

10th to bottom (last 7 photos):  Reiko Fujii

 

Notes on featured photographers:  Virginia Lee Zukowski's photographic work can be viewed at Virginia Lee Photography, Wilderness Studios, 2810 Wilderness Place, Boulder CO 80301, and she can be emailed at Zukowsk1@msn.com.  Reiko Fujii's art is currently on display at the San Ramon, California, City Hall Gallery. For previous exhibit locations and availability of her books "Anna's Hummers" and "Suburban Owls", see reikofujii.com.  Matt Kennan can be emailed at mattkennan@comcast.net.

Footnote:  Part 1 of  "Close Encounters" was posted here on September 26, 2025.

 

Annals of Design: Most Beautiful Cars, Part 2

Part 1 of this series was a review (okay, a grumpy critique) of James Cannon's list of the most beautiful cars.  Cannon never stated his selection criteria, so the reader was left with dozens of examples of "what" without any discussion of "why".  But industrial design, like architecture and music, is a body of knowledge, and it might have helped if we'd had a discussion of how that knowledge was reflected in the cars.

Cannon made a good choice in picking Gordon Buehrig's design for the front-drive 1936 Cord 810, and mentioned the hidden headlights.  But the 810, and the 812 that followed in 1937 (the red car above) was as significant for what it lacked as for what it had.  Along with hiding the headlights behind streamlined fender flaps, Buehrig got rid of running boards and the traditional vertical radiator grille fronting most cars.  Instead he wrapped horizontal chrome louvers around the nose, leading the eye around the side of the car, where it was confronted with clean flanks and teardrop fenders devoid of decoration.  On the supercharged 812, Alex Tremulis added chromed exhausts exiting the Lycoming V8 through decorative oblong vents (barely visible on the red Sportsman above) and this was a distraction from the purity of the original.  On the 810 sedan below the simplicity stands out.  Where details on the 810 occur, they serve to enhance, rather than distract from, the overall form.  Buehrig's instrument panel design was justly famed for the way if offered information and identified controls, as well as for the way it reminded us that the automobile is a machine.  Note also the simplicity of the flush circular tail lights, the way the roof curvature is carried into a trunk that is a simple unadorned opening, and the circular slots in the hubcaps.

The same year the Cord 810 showed up in Indianapolis, over in Paris Joseph Figoni designed a teardrop coupe on the sporty, short-chassis Talbot-Lago T150SS.  As with Buehrig's Cord design, details are conceived to emphasize the theme of the overall form.  In this case, oval grilles offer engine cooling and hide the headlights, oval side windows echo the reverse curve of the teardrop front fenders, and bumpers are reduced to thin-section chrome wing shapes that probably protect the design theme better than they protect the metal...

At the rear, we see the teardrop roof shape stated in elevation, section and plan, and restated in the half moon of the backlight, with its curved lower corners.  Rear fenders repeat the teardrop theme, their shape underlined by chrome edging, and the subtle chromed deck fin appeared on later Figoni & Falaschi bodies. The Museum of Modern Art identified this teardrop coupe design as a masterwork in its landmark Eight Automobiles exhibit in 1951, and the Cord 810 showed up there too...

A decade after that Figoni coupe, Pinin Farina designed and built the landmark coupe body below on a chassis built by the Cisitalia firm, which had formed after World War II to offer single-seat racers and sporty road cars powered by modified Fiat engines.  Despite the modest power offered by its 1100cc inline four and its high price, Cisitalia's 202 coupe attracted attention as one of the first visual statements of the design idiom that would become known as the Italian Line, with simple, unadorned contours to attract the eye and cheat the wind.  Note the way the ovoid grille shape repeats the downward curve of the hood, with the fender tops standing well above the hood surface, a very unusual feature in 1946...

The rear view shows how the roof form is carried through the deck, and how the rear fenders are formed to avoid the slab sides of some early-postwar cars, but are still integrated into an envelope body form, unlike the teardrop-fendered Cord and Talbot.  One thing the Cisitalia shared with those designs, though, was that MOMA selected it to appear in their Eight Automobiles show...

As with Bertone's Lamborghini Miura showcased in Part 1, the Mercedes Benz 300SL coupe that first appeared at the February 1954 New York Auto Show was a landmark example of integrating body design with chassis design and mechanical layout.  Here, Friedrich Geiger adapted the somewhat tub-like form of the Le Mans-winning 1952 racer to a production car* by extending the high door openings down so they just cleared the tubular frame along the flanks, which meant that as on the racer the doors were hinged at the roof, leading to the "gullwing" nickname that stayed with the car.  The leaned-over, fuel injected overhead cam inline 6 inspired the twin blisters in the hood.  The aero blisters over the wheel openings may have been there to smooth air flow. Along with the functional side air vents, they certainly led the eye along the form and made the car look lower. You've probably noticed the '63 Corvette coupe lurking in the background; Cannon had that car on his list too.  The reason we didn't quite agree is a story for later on...

Cannon also selected the original production Ford Mustang from 1964 for his list.  As "most beautiful" doesn't need to take into account practicality or affordability, we wondered why he didn't just pick the mid-engine Mustang I* show car from 1962 with its predictive side-mounted radiators.  But because Ford actually manufactured over a hundred of its landmark GT40, and even offered a road version for which there were a few takers, this is the Ford we picked.  Ford's mid-engine GT40, so named for its roof height of 40", was launched in 1964 as the centerpiece of Ford's effort to beat Ferrari...

Ron Bradshaw's body design appeared in long nose (above) and short nose (below) forms, on the the GT40 Mark I powered first by Ford's Indy V8 and then by the 289, and on the 7-liter Mark III, and was also offered on the road-going Mark 3 from 1966-'69.  Ford repeated the basic forms of this design on the Ford GT revival it began selling to the public in fall of 2004...

The body form by Ron Bradshaw did a good job of managing airflow, and signaled that with the air extractors above the front-mounted radiator, the two side air inlets behind the doors, and the turned-up tail spoiler.  The inward sloping section at the roof and tuck-under at the lower body did much to lower frontal area, but nothing to improve cabin space, and driver Dan Gurney had a famous "helmet bump" installed in the roof (into which doors opened) on his car.

And if one argues that a beautiful racing car is one that wins, the GT40 qualifies.  The 427-powered Mk. III (with its projecting upper side vents below) took 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966, and a 289 Mk. I won that race in '68 and '69, actually the same specimen car both years.  A Ford won in '67 too, but that was a Mk. IV with a different body design...

We agreed with the choice of the Alfa Romeo Type 33 Stradale from 1967, but wanted to talk a bit about why it was such a good choice.  The alloy body design of the mid-engine 2 liter V8, a street version of the Type 33 (thus the name) was built by Marazzi to the design of Franco Scaglione*, and reflects his usual themes with its repeat of parabolic shapes in the plan and section of the greenhouse, and his concern for aerodynamics.  Doors extend into the roof as they do on the GT40 from the same era, and the "tumble-home" and 'tuck-under" show that low frontal area was a goal.  Air intakes are carefully deployed while air dams and big spoilers are not (this was a "street" car).  Unlike on later production Alfas, there's no big triangular air intake; the Alfa shield at the front looks like a decorative afterthought... 

McLaren made the original "most beautiful" list, but with a somewhat generic-looking supercar from their current lineup.  Our pick was the F1 road car, the first series-produced McLaren built from 1992-'98, because the body form by Peter Stevens complimented the chassis layout by Gordon Murray.  First of all, the thing was light, only around 3 hundred pounds heavier than a late 1st-series Mazda Miata. The BMW V12-powered coupe was the first series-produced monocoque body-chassis in carbon fiber.  And the Stevens body design was especially compact, with short overhangs.  Space efficiency was higher than our other road racer examples, with the driver centered between 2 passengers.  The air extractors on the flanks enhance the body form while hiding the lower door shut lines, and provide a visual trademark compared with the current run of look-alike mid-engine exotics.  Also, the F1 design proved itself by being the last series-produced car to win the 24 hours of Le Mans, in 1995...

*Footnote:  Our other finalist among early Fifties production cars was Bob Bourke's Studebaker Starliner, which got its own post on February 20, 2021 in "Forgotten Classic: 1953-'54 Studebaker Starliner---Sleeping Beauty from South Bend". Ford's mid-engined Mustang prototype was featured in "The First Mustang: Ford's Forgotten Mustang I" from August 26, 2015, and designer Franco Scaglione got a retrospective in "Unsung Genius Franco Scaglione: The Arc of Success", in our archives for December 20, 2017. 

Photo Credits:

Top, 2nd & 3rd from top:  Mecum Auctions

6th & 7th from top:  Gogo Heinrich

2nd from bottom:  George Havelka

All other photos are by the author.

Annals of Design: Best Car Designs Ever? Well, Maybe Just the Most Beautiful...

Someone named James Cannon at something called Rush Experts recently posted an essay on the world's most beautiful cars.  Even though he claims expertise he got the photos wrong.  First off, he showed us a Series 2 E-Type Jaguar roadster, the one with the under-bumper tail lights that look like something from J.C. Whitney.  Then he compounded that error by claiming to show us a Series 1 E-Type coupe, but gave us a shot of a 2+2, with its high roof & long wheelbase, and compounded his mistake by choosing an early 2+2 with its too-vertical windshield.  For the sake of correcting the record, above and below are shots of the Series 1 E-Type roadster and coupe as designer Malcolm Sayer wanted us to see them...

Mr. Cannon praised Jaguar's XK-SS without noting that it was just a road version of the D-Type racer, here shown without the bumpers and full-width windscreen added for road use on the XK-SS, and with that famous stabilizing fin the XK-SS lacked.  

Not bad for something that appeared in 1954, a good seven years before the E-Type, and with 4-wheel disc brakes too.  Our experts could have noted the similarities between D and E, including the oval shapes repeated in plan, section and elevation, in the air intake and even in the shapes of the wheel cutouts.  This seems an almost hypnotic display of reinforcing an overall form with attention to detail.  

Our experts at Rush Experts wanted to tell us how much they admired almost 3 dozen cars for their beauty, but seemed to be in too much of a rush to tell us why.  Ferrari's GTO (Giotto Bizzarrini's design) apparently grabbed their attention because of its long hood and vents...

But several production model Ferraris like the GTB below have long hoods and vents too,  here with arguably a better integration of window shapes into that sloping roof. The GTO has the unsentimental directness of a racer, though, and gets more publicity when one sells for eight figures at an auction...

We're glad we ditched the idea of writing about the Best Car Designs Ever (which might've required including virtues like durability and practicality) and just decided to concentrate on beauty like Mr. Cannon  did.  That way, we get to include cars he somehow passed by, like the Lotus Eleven from 1956, one of the last great front-engined sports racers, relying on Frank Costin's aerodynamics and Colin Chapman's lightweight tubular chassis to stave off the mid-engined revolution already happening at Cooper and Porsche.

We can also include the Lotus Elite from 1957, designed by Chapman's accountant Peter Kirwan-Taylor and refined by Frank Costin.  The first car with a fiberglass unit body / chassis, reinforced here and there with steel, but maybe not quite enough...

The Type 14 Elite is another example of using details in ways that reinforce the overall form, like the side windows curving in plan to match the plan shape of the roof.  No, the side windows don't roll down; you add ventilation by removing them and stowing them in protective envelopes.  This shot shows the rear suspension towers that created high noise levels inside, and also what may be the first use of a flat, recessed tail panel for lights and number plate.

The experts admired the proportions of Marcello Gandini's Lamborghini Miura from a decade later, and mentioned the V12 power plant, but didn't get around to telling us the reason for those proportions.  The reason the Miura looks so balanced (at a distance, it's hard to guess where the engine might be) is that the V12 engine is mounted transversely behind the cabin and between the rear wheels.  It was an almost-masterstroke of integrating mechanical with visual design.  

Why an almost masterstroke? Because the Miura shared its crankcase oil with the transverse-mounted transmission, which happened to be a feature of the BMC Mini, a car that inspired it (well, from a mechanical concept standpoint anyway).  In the rear view, the louvers give a clue to the engine location.  Transmission oil was finally separated from engine oil on the last 96 or 98 cars, depending on whom you ask.

The photo below shows how the Miura opened up to allow access to the front-mounted radiator, and to that V12 behind the cabin, with luggage space behind the engine.

The colorful design riot went on inside the Miura as well, with Gandini avoiding the usual flat instrument panel, maybe in an attempt to keep up with (or distract driver and passenger from) the noise from chassis engineer Gianpaolo Dallara's mid-mounted 4-cam V12 engine, which had been designed by Giotto Bizzarrini.  We mentioned him before, right?

Those experts failed to mention the bracingly clean and original De Tomaso Mangusta that emerged in production the same year (1967) as the first Miura, so we will. Giorgetto Giugiaro's body design signaled the mid-mounted engine location with larger rear tires than at the front, and vents behind the rear side windows, with lots of "tumble-home" in the cabin section above a crease connecting front and rear wheel arches, and inward slope to the body section below it, emphasizing the wheels and tires. A Ford V8 sat behind the cabin and ahead of the transaxle.  

Ghia and Giugiaro wisely declined the temptation of front bumpers; the form stands out better that way (until someone backs into it).   None of the wedge-themed car designs that followed this one improved on its proportions or contours...

The experts suggested the BMW 2002 from the late Sixties was one of the world's most beautiful cars.  Hmm, I loved the sharp handling and reliability of mine, but thought the body design was a Corvair knock-off.  The Rush people liked the Turbo version from the early 70s best, but that may be a case of mistaking forward rush for beauty...

The experts scored better with their choice of BMW's M1, a Giugiaro design from 1978.  A more practical car than his Mangusta, but as we're talking beauty here the mid-engined, transverse inline six BMW bodied by Ital Design doesn't get the masterwork rating we'd give the Mangusta.  There are details aplenty, like the side vents, rear louvers, and flat, half-hearted version of the BMW twin kidney grille at the front, but they don't work together to emphasize the form with the same spare clarity as on the Mangusta.

No, if there's a BMW entry in the Most Beautiful lineup, for our money it's Albrecht Goertz's design for the BMW 507 roadster, produced from 1956 through '59.  Here details like the raised ridges extending past the wheel arches, and over the front fender vents, manage to emphasize the car's pared-down, sleek form. The BMW roundel fits into the curve of the fender vents.  The detachable hardtop looks a part of the body shape rather than an add-on.

The old twin-kidney grille received a rework by Goertz; it's now low in profile and vee-shaped in plan, a shape repeated in the shallow air intake atop the hood.  The flanks of the car turn inward below the speed lines topping the wheel arches, allowing the tires to protrude a bit beyond the flanks at the rocker panels.

BMW only managed to build 252 or 253 of this model before production ended; the alloy-bodied roadsters were expensive to make.  That means there are around 200 fewer of the 507 than of the M1.  A good place to end today's critical (okay, slightly grumpy) review.  In Part 2 we'll look at American designs, earlier Fifties designs, and designs from the interwar period.

*Footnote:   Some of these cars have been featured before on this blog. Here's a list, with dates in parentheses.

Jaguar E-Type (8-13-17 & 5-31-19), Jaguar D-Type (7-28-17), Ferrari GTO (11-30-20), Lotus Eleven (3-20-23), Lotus Elite Type 14 (7-31-16), Lamborghini Miura (7-11-17), DeTomaso Mangusta (7-24-23) and BMW 507 (10-20-19).

Photo Credits:

Top & 2nd from top:  Jaguar Cars

All other photos are by the author.