Breakfast Visitor

 We had a particularly hungry visitor for breakfast today. Usually the garden is full of LBJs because we have a hedge. 'Sadly', there appeared to be none about. After a glorious few minutes our visitor decided on 'breakfasting' elsewhere!  

Bird Tunes

 A visit to Wingfield Barns for a concert given by Miranda Rutter and Rob Harbron. Rutter, a folk musician, fiddle and viola player, composer, performer and teacher, smashed it for us.  The  project Bird Tunes: a suite of newly composed tunes is inspired by birds and birdsong.  Very enjoyable! The Barns are in a lovely spot and the birds showed up to provide ambient sound. Asked if they had ever considered using the concrake (known to the friends of Coll as Cornflakes) as inspiration - no takers? However, The Blackbird Schottische is a real cracker.
 

Bird Brain and Murmuration

The book of the week is  The Wood by John Lewis-Stempel  Read by Greg Wise
 I am reflecting on this and life etc when I notice
Mr Wikipedia asserts that flocking behaviors are controlled by three simple rules:

    Separation - avoid crowding neighbors (short range repulsion)
    Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighbors
    Cohesion - steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction)

So there you go. However, I'm not sure I would be able to solve,  continuously, 3 similtaneous differential equations while flying 30 metres (variable) above the ground.

A nice touch in the description of blackbirds - squawking like enraged Ayatollahs.
(Is that not a touch perjorative... Ed?)
To a blackbird, possibly, but you are looking at a man who has enjoyed two filums in the last 24 hours, Dr Zhivago and Brooklyn and who's peace and equilibrium are not to be shifted!

Breakfast

Best meal of the day, really, but as we progress in age (and wisdom and grace as well surely...Ed!)
I've told you before not Shirley!
On these cold and grey days a little later perhaps. However, that gives herself time to fill up the birds' feeders. I spotted this fella as I was munching on my mixture of seeds nuts and oats.

Marvellous things proton pumps, have I ever mentioned it before.

Hazie Daze

Fine day Monday at Lackford Lakes with the weather bright and crisp. All of which puts one in a reflective mood.

(It can only get worse...Ed!)
The old ticker gave a leap of joy as I recognised the flight form of one bird that I had never seen before, to my knowledge, in the feathers, as it were (take that as fast failing memory...Ed.) A kingfisher, which had been masquerading as a little brown job on a pole in the mid-distance, took off and flew across our line of sight. It banked and flashed its finery at us. A Mr Macfarlane had something to say about the weather too, and Halcyon Days, and kingfishers.

I'm so grateful for having RM's word of the day pointed out to me! Nice one B!

Energy raw in beak and claw!

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year, the subject is energy. Catch the last one this evening Beeb4 20:00 or on the EyePlayer thereafter.
Out for our walk on  Sunday we were entranced for about 20 minutes watching a buzzard working the ground around a small river and large field bordered by woods. There was a stiff breeze and the seeming lack of effort that it took to glide over the area looking for its xmas dinner made me think again "it's the energy stupid". What a marvel of energy it is. Precision hunting machine, power pack attached with renewable energy storage. Amazing what you can do with the old proton pump! Still the poor thing did not get its dinner while we were about.
(Probably too polite to tuck in while you heathens were watching...Ed)

Cygnet Ring

Word Botching

A Kite is pure delight
But a 'fisher is much swisher!

Thanks for all the fish

I witnessed an attack of the Zombie Herons the other day. It was in Thetford, of all places.

(Do you not feel there is something Trumpish about that hairdo...Ed?)
Strictly for the birds.

Support your local Quantum Mechanic!

Coming to a branch near you.

Jim and John explain at Th'Observer

Not only do we have to admire the aggressive,  cheeky little bu**e*rs for what they are but they can do QM on the fly!

Storms and Waves

HEADLAND

I shelter by rocks, dragon tailed.
I watch the roaring breakers,
big enough to turn a man inside
and the toe teasing tide
mesmerises me, taking me to another place.


A TEUCHIT STORM

The black shadow drifted half menace, half intent.
It circled, lazy days rich pickings.
A buzzard high above the field.

First one bird flew directly, the raptor continued,
A second flew and the hunter banked.
At once the sky was alive with lapwings.

The big bird glided on without concern.
Then a teuchit storm, a volcano, erupted and it departed
 Letting them feed their young for another day.

What we did on our holidays, again.

Stoned?

History Lesson

Very Pharonic?

Twitching the Electric Snipe

And Calling the Silkies.

Austerity

Gideon's  austerity has seeped into our bones with the cold and has infected the bird life hereabouts. A walk on a cold grey day in the snow was a pleasant and companionable enough experience. We spotted a nearly all white owl parading its catch, a small rodent or bird. It appeared to be quite arrogant about displaying until it was pursued by a buzzard stage right. I guess the buzzard was attempting to gain an easy meal by forcing the owl to drop its prey. Times are so hard we also came across a dead peasant.

(Maybe that was a pheasant! Could it not have been sleeping...Ed?)

Pleutering with Swans

I had been off pleutering about and taking an easy road out of the village paused to catch breath and the sights and sounds on a bridge over the mighty river of ours which feeds the Little Ouse. Needless to say it was quiet. A good excuse to absorb the last sunshine of September, feel bones warmed and spirits lifted. Cheers, but in a good way. I thought I was on my own but a loud beating came from under the bridge. The trickle beneath my feet must have produced a huge fish if some previously unseen angler was landing his catch and dispatching it. The beating continued, increased even, but I could not identify the cause. Moving to the other side of the bridge I saw a swan paddling about in a very shallow pool going about its business of grooming and looking truly magnificent, as white as an angel on a Christmas tree.

Further on I noticed a bird scarer. The farmers use these kites, in the shape and with the motion of real birds of prey.
I watched for some time in grudging appreciation of the mimicry. I suppose they work but they probably displace real birds of pray and sometimes mistakes of perspective and general stupidity make me think that the folk at Mildenhall or Honnington have invented silent helicopters. I was mulling these daft thoughts about in my head when the bird scarer dropped like a stone into the field. It was an accept no imitation Kestrel. The real thing!

I thought of

 If you've seen the hawk, be sure, the hawk has seen you. 

 (Findings, Kathleen Jamie. p 32. I thoroughly enjoyed this book like all of hers that I have read and must attribute the pleutering to her; p51 to be precise.)
  

The Birds

Ok so here's the deal. You pay at the meter and we don't cr*p on your car!

All your parkin space belong us.

If only politicians were so honest.

Priesting

The day I was due to be electrocuted (therapeutic not judicial, even Suffolk is not that right wing) I had a late reprieve! The powers that be judged I had regained my wonderful sense of rhythm and the future for me lay in drugs not electrification. I am nothing if not a pathfinder for my country.
My own view is that the NHS had run out of shillings for the lecky meter and needed a few bob prior to privatisation, however, we will let that go.

Given that we were not doing anything else, Lady BP and yours truly went off to the local wildlife trust. A lovely day and glad to be electrically neutral we wandered thither and yon looking for a kingfisher or two (Ed... you're getting carried away and besides this blog can not afford more than one kingfisher at a time!)

In one of the hides we spotted a heron, priesting, as we say along with Dylan; Thomas that is not Bob. A completely different kettle of herring. ( Ed... Jesus, let's do the artwork and get out of here back to the asylum before you are locked out. )

Snapped on the old Magi-Phone, not very good, but you can see, surely, the blatant levitical posturing of the bird in the centre

Red Kites in the Sunrise

Slo Mo to take your breath away.

We used to watch these birds with endless fascination in Cantabria.
Little did we know!

Thanks to the Grauniad for the Link

Sore Throats

Good morning!
Please turn to page 92?
I may have mentioned San Blas or St Blaise once or twice before in these lectures.
The devout among you will have noticed that Wednesday this week was the feast day of the holy man, himself.

He is the patron saint of sore throats plus a few other things. Well, after martyrdom you need some interests as, in the left footer's version of heaven, there are no virgins made available.
Your man St Blaise makes a bob or two responding to prayers concerning the throat. Was he an ENT specialist, I hear you ask? Well no, I think his main qualification for the job was the fact that he had his head cut off, and like King Louis XIV, it spoiled his constitution. However, it did give him a unique insight into maintaining health and integrity in the region between the head and shoulders!

He was, allegedly, Armenian but has a great following in the north of Spain, Campoo, where we lived for a while. I do not think the Campurrianos have weak throats but I do know there is a tradition the storks appear and start building their nests on San Blas. We have seen them and therefore it must be true.


If you don't believe me have a look! They are ungainly, ponderous, inefficient, build their nests out of the most unsuitable sticks in the most ridiculous places and look complete arses while they do it. You can't help feeling a little stab of joy when, eventually, you see the head of the young stork appear above the edge of the nest.



Thank you.
Next weeks lecture will be on the importance of the
South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics (SWISH) in the development of interfaith hegemony and security in the tribal areas.

Bird on a Wire

The end of my chairpersonship of the board of a small non-profit which I hope has done some good in the world. Feelings of relief that the boat was the right way up as I was piped overboard, also glad that it has a purpose and some resources to carry on its mission.
I was downloading some of my recent snaps and this one caught my imagination.

Bird on a wire.
The long tail.
The bottom line.
There's always one.
I'm sure they said 5th wire down 4th post from the windmill.

Never a Grauniad Sub when you want one.

Watering The Hummers

Not what you think.
Susan McCarthy's blog paints a sparkling word picture. It would be quite a sight to see.
Love the title, I have felt like that on many an occasion!

In the meantime link to a picture:- a picture.