I spy with my animal eye

Have you heard of the "The Once and Future King," the wonderful novel about the Arthurian legend on which Disney based its cartoon feature,  "The Sword and The Stone?" The story of the tutoring of the young Arthur makes for an absorbing  book for both children and adults. (I give it to young people all the time; if they liked Harry P., they'll love this book as well. So will you!)

In the story as told by T.H. White,  Merlin transforms the orphan boy Walt into various animals to teach him about life from their perspectives. The man who was to become king gains great insight into the world this way, and the descriptions of  Walt as a peregrine falcon soaring  through the sky have stayed with me since I first read the book as a teenager.

I've always yearned to have that sort of experience, and to have some sort of understanding from a less, err, human perspective -- and now, through the extraordinary resources of the  Museum of Animal Perspectives, my wish has come true.

With the help of remote controlled cameras all over the world, the Museum of Animal Perspective shows us what a chickadee sees as she brings food to her hungry nestlings, what it's like to be a prairie dog traveling down a tunnel, and what a lobster views at the dank bottom of the ocean. Give it a look -- it's really, really cool!

All photos from the Museum of Animal Perspectives