lindisfel
Expert
I think it means they deliberately stall in the wind for fun or the shear exuberance of their existence.Interesting name. Not then like the pitch drop experiment or the Rooks would be up there for decades![]()
D.
I think it means they deliberately stall in the wind for fun or the shear exuberance of their existence.Interesting name. Not then like the pitch drop experiment or the Rooks would be up there for decades![]()
Tuesday night - dress up and take a bucket door to door. My grandchildren tell me it works a treat.Actually, I think that I also need a treat.
In Shetland they have what is known as the "Simmer Dim", when the sun never goes right down - even here in the Western Isles, during the middle of summer it is not dark enough to turn on the lights. Especially during the school holidays children can be seen out playing at all hours. Teenagers, on the other hand, resist the suggestion to put down their electronic game and come out of their bedroom, even for food. Crofters work outside for most of the daylight time - making hay while the sun shines, as they say.I see difficulties in getting teenagers up early enough and getting young children to bed early enough when it's really light in summer.
some houses around here are joining the OTT brigade of Christmas decorations, by decking the halls with Halloween decorations. One house has a twenty foot web with a humungous spider in the middle, another has a skeleton just lying in the garden with lights around! What is next?Tuesday night - dress up and take a bucket door to door. My grandchildren tell me it works a treat.
Thoughtless. I'm not the only person in the world with a phobia about spiders.some houses around here are joining the OTT brigade of Christmas decorations, by decking the halls with Halloween decorations. One house has a twenty foot web with a humungous spider in the middle, another has a skeleton just lying in the garden with lights around! What is next?
At my club we had a physio who had a skeleton on hand to give his talks.Thoughtless. I'm not the only person in the world with a phobia about spiders.
Come to that, some people have a fear of skeletons. Neil, just for fun, bough a toilet brush housed in a (fibre glass) skull and the youngest (3 year old) great granddaughter refused to come into the house! One of the times Tom tried to leave seafaring behind, he became a physio student and as part of his studies, he bought a skeleton. Our landlady insisted on us getting rid of it - it terrified her for some reason. Hallowe'en is a stressful time for dopes like us.
Mind you up there you always can compensate by burning a Viking longship.In Shetland they have what is known as the "Simmer Dim", when the sun never goes right down - even here in the Western Isles, during the middle of summer it is not dark enough to turn on the lights. Especially during the school holidays children can be seen out playing at all hours. Teenagers, on the other hand, resist the suggestion to put down their electronic game and come out of their bedroom, even for food. Crofters work outside for most of the daylight time - making hay while the sun shines, as they say.
Last night must have been pretty clear. I sleep with my curtains open because I never remember to take a stick into my room to reach the curtains - can't manage it with the walking frame, it's too cumbersome to lift high enough. Anyway, the sky was light so there must have been a very clear moon lighting it and casting shadows across the room. Still needed the light when I woke up, even though the sky was still lit by the moon. I couldn't see the moon, but that was because my window faces the wrong way. Today, however, I have needed the light on all day in the kitchen because it is so grey and dark outside.
Reminds me of the one where a horse goes into a bar and the barman says, "Why the long face?"Fbg 6.6
Wildlife nighttime camera
Badger climbs on garden swing & investigates camera...
1 min
Creative...an owl in Procreate.
Yesterday, intense alarm calls from the sparrows on and off all day. I had something to do, so stayed outside well wrapped. The sparrowhawk did at least one fly through, but got nothing. The kestrel was hovering. Then suddenly the little birds went silent and melted into the bushes. I couldn't see anything, then I looked directly upwards. A buzzard was circling above my garden. What was he hoping for? He carried on circling so I checked potting shed and garage roof but nothing there. So, a search of the undergrowth for maybe a dead animal. But nothing.
It was half four later before the buzzard stopped circling immediately above and moved away but still circling...
The little Robin, who is now resident in my garden, comes to my window as soon as daylight comes. And looks at me. So, I have to get out of bed, go outside and put some cat biscuits down. I put Jade's food down as well. I come back in, nearly trip over a small black cat, stray Amy, who appears to have slept in the bungalow last night and wants wet cat food, not the dried stuff. Then she disappears outside for the day. I stumble into the kitchen, and stray ginger cat Merlin leaps off Midnight's chair (which Merlin has claimed for his own). He also requests wet cat food. Amy and Merlin are learning to ask nicely for food, instead of snarling and hissing and clawing at me. Infinite patience is required...
I finally get back in bed with my coffee with cream, and the little Robin is waiting for me by the glass door (outside) and once he sees me he goes and takes another cat biscuit, and flies off. Moments later he is back, looking through the glass door at me again, and once I acknowledge him/or see him there he will go and take another cat biscuit...and so this goes on most of the morning...
I am just pouring a cuppa tea, and Mr Heffalump (wood pigeon) is availing himself of cat biscuits. Was he who the buzzard was after yesterday? Surely it wouldn't have been the tiny sparrows? I wouldn't like that buzzard to catch 'my' wood pigeon. He has been around the last 2 or 3 years. I have grumbled about him often enough, but he is almost like a friend now!
All the sparrows, bluetits, and pied wagtails are happily feeding...
Some starlings just flew over, and the ravens have landed in the cherry trees...
Enjoy your day.
View attachment 63999
When Helen went to Medical school some 42 years ago she had to have a skeleton. It was an actual human from the third world which I doubt is permitted today. She had her own name for him and kept the little bones from the ear in a box in cotton wool. Knowing I was a bit squemish then she would leave him in places where I would find him.At my club we had a physio who had a skeleton on hand to give his talks.
When he left, it was stashed away in one of the many small store rooms dotted around, I was asked to find something important, and I happened upon the dead guy under a lot of paperwork and old kit and equipment, in darkness.
Never mind the spiders webs! That was scary, until it was funny!
Such a lot going on in that garden, I would be exhausted. Another smashing owl.Fbg 6.6
Wildlife nighttime camera
Badger climbs on garden swing & investigates camera...
1 min
Creative...an owl in Procreate.
Yesterday, intense alarm calls from the sparrows on and off all day. I had something to do, so stayed outside well wrapped. The sparrowhawk did at least one fly through, but got nothing. The kestrel was hovering. Then suddenly the little birds went silent and melted into the bushes. I couldn't see anything, then I looked directly upwards. A buzzard was circling above my garden. What was he hoping for? He carried on circling so I checked potting shed and garage roof but nothing there. So, a search of the undergrowth for maybe a dead animal. But nothing.
It was half four later before the buzzard stopped circling immediately above and moved away but still circling...
The little Robin, who is now resident in my garden, comes to my window as soon as daylight comes. And looks at me. So, I have to get out of bed, go outside and put some cat biscuits down. I put Jade's food down as well. I come back in, nearly trip over a small black cat, stray Amy, who appears to have slept in the bungalow last night and wants wet cat food, not the dried stuff. Then she disappears outside for the day. I stumble into the kitchen, and stray ginger cat Merlin leaps off Midnight's chair (which Merlin has claimed for his own). He also requests wet cat food. Amy and Merlin are learning to ask nicely for food, instead of snarling and hissing and clawing at me. Infinite patience is required...
I finally get back in bed with my coffee with cream, and the little Robin is waiting for me by the glass door (outside) and once he sees me he goes and takes another cat biscuit, and flies off. Moments later he is back, looking through the glass door at me again, and once I acknowledge him/or see him there he will go and take another cat biscuit...and so this goes on most of the morning...
I am just pouring a cuppa tea, and Mr Heffalump (wood pigeon) is availing himself of cat biscuits. Was he who the buzzard was after yesterday? Surely it wouldn't have been the tiny sparrows? I wouldn't like that buzzard to catch 'my' wood pigeon. He has been around the last 2 or 3 years. I have grumbled about him often enough, but he is almost like a friend now!
All the sparrows, bluetits, and pied wagtails are happily feeding...
Some starlings just flew over, and the ravens have landed in the cherry trees...
Enjoy your day.
View attachment 63999