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Cinnabar moth
May. 21st, 2025 11:03 amSaw one of these this morning in the garden, although the red markings were fluorescent pink on mine:
https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/cinnabar
https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/cinnabar
RIP Izzy 12 May 2025
May. 13th, 2025 10:31 pmThis is not the first post that I wanted to make after a long gap. I had been planning to talk about my retirement, the latest Cambridge Literary Festival, plays and concerts attended, books read. Instead, Izzy died last night.
I had been a bit late feeding her, as we had been out to an (indifferent) student production at Anglia Ruskin. It was a warm, sunny evening so we walked over and back, and as soon as we got home I put out Izzy's cat food. She rushed into the kitchen and happily devoured the cat crunchies in one of the bowls. Then I made us dinner and we watched some TV. Izzy then threw up at the bottom of the stairs. I assumed that it was a reaction from eating too fast, so was mildly annoyed.
A bit later I heard her howling from upstairs. This was a noise she had never made before, raucous and disturbing. I went up to see what was the matter and found her lying on her front, her back legs splayed out, and howling repeatedly. I called the emergency vet (it was just after 9 pm) and they said to bring her in and they could see her at 9:45. M brought the cat carrier down from the loft and slid the open end towards her. She hauled herself in by her front feet and I pushed her back end in. She managed to turn herself round so she was facing the door.
The emergency vet is in Milton, about a 20 minute drive. We got there by 9:30 and they saw her immediately. They gave her a sedative and pain relief as soon as we got there. The vet said that it was most likely there was a blood clot in one of the veins on her back legs, then explained that the treatment options were limited and did not have a good prognosis, so we decided to let her go.
So at 8pm, when I fed her, she was fine, by 10 pm she was dead.
She was quite an ordinary black and white cat, with green eyes and an intense stare. She was just 16, and definitely a one person cat, and that person was me. She used to purr like a train for as long as I would sit beside her giving her fuss. She led a happy life right up until those last couple of hours. I’m going to miss her terribly.
Cambridge Chalk Streams Petition
Jun. 17th, 2024 08:09 amI think this is probably the first time I have shared a petition, but here it is, this one's important to us in Cambridge:
https://www.change.org/p/save-our-chalk-streams-petition-to-the-environment-agency
Please read and if you feel moved, sign.
I also recommend watching the following privately made documentary, if you can get to a screening: https://purecleanwater.film/
https://www.change.org/p/save-our-chalk-streams-petition-to-the-environment-agency
Please read and if you feel moved, sign.
I also recommend watching the following privately made documentary, if you can get to a screening: https://purecleanwater.film/
Christmas Lights at the Botanics photos
Dec. 28th, 2023 01:19 pmFurther to my last post M has put some photos on Instagram here:
https://doubtingmichael.dreamwidth.org/576.html
https://doubtingmichael.dreamwidth.org/576.html
Botanic lights
Dec. 23rd, 2023 07:28 pmLike many other places the Cambridge Botanic Gardens have installed evening illuminations this year, during December. I had booked for us to go, but then we got Covid (to be precise, I caught Covid and then gave it to M, so on that evening I was just coming out of it as he was going down). We tried to give the tickets away but failed, and then thought that if we could find somewhere nearby to park we would probably be up to walking round it, and we could wear masks to avoid infecting anyone. So that's what we did.
I'm sure you know what sort of thing it is - a son et lumiere type exhibition that you walk round in your own time, on a pre-set path. Many of the trees are illuminated in different colours, there are sculptures and light displays. There are soundscapes and music.
I thought it was delightful. There were parts that were more crowded and I was glad that we had worn the masks. My office used to be very near to the back gate of the gardens and I spent many happy lunch hours meandering round its paths, and learning the names of plants that I recognised from our own garden (or just lying on my back under a tree). But the darkness and the lights made the landscape completely unfamiliar, so that I kept being surprised by finding myself in places that I knew.
Perhaps the most interesting part was when gentle illumination would reveal the structure of a tree, and I would think, Oh, I have seen that tree in a completely new way. The lights meant that you could see the trunk and branches much more clearly than usual through the leaves. There was one part where we just walked between trees to the gentle sound of birdsong - I felt I could have done that for ages.
There were bright lights and saturated colours, and some rather irritating pop music in parts, but overall I felt it struck a good balance between entertainment and enhancing your experience of just being in the gardens. There were some areas that were charming, and some that were silly (tiny doors attached to the tree trunks) and others that were very peaceful and meditative.
I'm sure you know what sort of thing it is - a son et lumiere type exhibition that you walk round in your own time, on a pre-set path. Many of the trees are illuminated in different colours, there are sculptures and light displays. There are soundscapes and music.
I thought it was delightful. There were parts that were more crowded and I was glad that we had worn the masks. My office used to be very near to the back gate of the gardens and I spent many happy lunch hours meandering round its paths, and learning the names of plants that I recognised from our own garden (or just lying on my back under a tree). But the darkness and the lights made the landscape completely unfamiliar, so that I kept being surprised by finding myself in places that I knew.
Perhaps the most interesting part was when gentle illumination would reveal the structure of a tree, and I would think, Oh, I have seen that tree in a completely new way. The lights meant that you could see the trunk and branches much more clearly than usual through the leaves. There was one part where we just walked between trees to the gentle sound of birdsong - I felt I could have done that for ages.
There were bright lights and saturated colours, and some rather irritating pop music in parts, but overall I felt it struck a good balance between entertainment and enhancing your experience of just being in the gardens. There were some areas that were charming, and some that were silly (tiny doors attached to the tree trunks) and others that were very peaceful and meditative.
Coming up at our local library...
Oct. 25th, 2023 04:26 pmTrollop Exhibition
Also on display in the Community Room glass-cases are some charming illustrations from Pamela’s recently-published work: ‘Locating Anthony Trollope’ for which she visited and painted the many places associated with him.
I'm afraid I laughed a lot.
Work day out - gardening
Oct. 8th, 2023 08:56 amMy department occasionally organises a community day out, so this year I went along. It turned out to be in a community garden in Hanwell https://cultivatelondon.org/ ; I did not wear my actual gardening clothes, as I didn't want to be taken up for vagrancy, but some sturdy walking kit, which was fine. We all had to wear yellow T-shirts with our our employer's logo on the front and a meaningless slogan on the back.
There were various jobs on offer, and I chose hazel coppicing. It turned out to be very like policing the buddleias, so I was happy. Tools required: secateurs, pruning saw, loppers. I took my own secateurs as I was not sure what would be on offer, and I was happy that I did so as they did not have any ratchet secateurs, which make it a lot easier to cut thicker stems.
There were two big hazel trees, with long branches springing from a central root. About 10 people could work on a tree at once, some cutting, some holding the branches while they were cut, others working on the cut branches. You had to cut the branches a few cm above the root, at an angle to allow the rain to run off. Once cut, you stripped away twigs and side shoots and left the branches in piles according to size. They would later be woven into fences.
I spent half an hour happily lopping and sawing, and then as my arm and shoulder muscles were tired I moved on to stripping, and then raking up the discarded leaves and twigs.
The discarded twigs and leaves are piled up in doughnuts around the bottom of fruit trees. You leave a few inches' gap round the trunk so the rain runs into the soil away from the trunk, and then the doughnut helps retain water and stop the roots drying out.
I enjoyed it and felt that I had learned a few things - how to use a pruning saw a bit better, so I now have thoughts about how to cut back our bay tree (which is huge and hard to keep under control). Some of the branches are too thick for the loppers at the height that I want to cut them, but now I feel a bit more confident about using the saw. Coincidentally hazel grows in the bottom few feet of our garden, so now I can try coppicing it. Not that I have any particular use for woven fences, but I will try the doughnut thing on the rosebushes, and maybe on some of the other shrubs. I do not feel that the buddleias need any additional help.
After the obligatory photos we took the Elizabeth line back into town, and had drinks and food at a pub in Farringdon.
There were various jobs on offer, and I chose hazel coppicing. It turned out to be very like policing the buddleias, so I was happy. Tools required: secateurs, pruning saw, loppers. I took my own secateurs as I was not sure what would be on offer, and I was happy that I did so as they did not have any ratchet secateurs, which make it a lot easier to cut thicker stems.
There were two big hazel trees, with long branches springing from a central root. About 10 people could work on a tree at once, some cutting, some holding the branches while they were cut, others working on the cut branches. You had to cut the branches a few cm above the root, at an angle to allow the rain to run off. Once cut, you stripped away twigs and side shoots and left the branches in piles according to size. They would later be woven into fences.
I spent half an hour happily lopping and sawing, and then as my arm and shoulder muscles were tired I moved on to stripping, and then raking up the discarded leaves and twigs.
The discarded twigs and leaves are piled up in doughnuts around the bottom of fruit trees. You leave a few inches' gap round the trunk so the rain runs into the soil away from the trunk, and then the doughnut helps retain water and stop the roots drying out.
I enjoyed it and felt that I had learned a few things - how to use a pruning saw a bit better, so I now have thoughts about how to cut back our bay tree (which is huge and hard to keep under control). Some of the branches are too thick for the loppers at the height that I want to cut them, but now I feel a bit more confident about using the saw. Coincidentally hazel grows in the bottom few feet of our garden, so now I can try coppicing it. Not that I have any particular use for woven fences, but I will try the doughnut thing on the rosebushes, and maybe on some of the other shrubs. I do not feel that the buddleias need any additional help.
After the obligatory photos we took the Elizabeth line back into town, and had drinks and food at a pub in Farringdon.
Greek pots and classicists
Sep. 24th, 2023 07:50 amThis weekend it's Cambridge Alumni Weekend. The university puts on a weekend of talks and reunion sessions for alumni. There's a tent on the Sidgwick site with refreshments and free tote bags. I signed up for a few talks and spent yesterday pedalling to and from the Sidgwick site.
Mindfulness for better sleep
I was late for this (due to oversleeping!) and arrived during a guided meditation. In the silence my footsteps were embarrassingly loud on the wooden stairs of the lecture theatre. Unfortunately I felt that I had missed the best bit.
The Trumpington Bed burial
At Newnham Dr Sam Lucy talked about the dig and finds from the archaeological site, which is close to Waitrose on the south of Cambridge. The deceased was an older teenager buried in a wooden bed frame, dressed in her best clothes and jewels ready (as one of the audience pointed out) for the resurrection of her body on the last day. Her bones had signs of ill-health, and DNA testing showed that she had been born in Germany, so would have been an actual Saxon. This was completely fascinating.
Handling session
This was a small group at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, which I had never visited since it moved from its old site in Mill Lane to the Sidgwick site in (ahem!) 1982. A young and enthusiastic academic (whose name I have shamefully forgotten) passed round a selection of Greek pots and sherds to fondle. I had never actally held an ancient Greek pot in my hands, and this made me so happy!
They included some small perfume oil pots (Corinthian ware, black figures on a cream background)), a kylix (black figure) which was a shallow drinking cup of the kind that they used in symposia, and a fragment from the rim of a krater (large wine mixing vessel).
The kylix had been broken and mended many times, the first time in antiquity with small bronze rivets. As these were designed for drinking parties there were often funny or trick pictures which were revealed as the cup was emptied. The design in the centre of the inside might be a humorous or grotesque picture for the drinker to look at, and the outside was painted so that as it was tipped up the other drinkers could see it. There might be a pair of eyes so that as the holder drank he seemed to be looking out through it. These were the cups they used for drinking games and the presenter demostrated the flick of the wrist needed to send the lees flying across the room.
...and party!
After this we went into the cast gallery next door where there was a small reception with wine (classicists, what can you do!) and we had a lovely natter with some of the faculty members. I didn't happen to know anyone but the academics were very happy to talk about their specialisms and it was good to chat with the other attendees about what they were doing now. (A surprising number turned out to be in finance, so I wasn't the odd one out.)
Mindfulness for better sleep
I was late for this (due to oversleeping!) and arrived during a guided meditation. In the silence my footsteps were embarrassingly loud on the wooden stairs of the lecture theatre. Unfortunately I felt that I had missed the best bit.
The Trumpington Bed burial
At Newnham Dr Sam Lucy talked about the dig and finds from the archaeological site, which is close to Waitrose on the south of Cambridge. The deceased was an older teenager buried in a wooden bed frame, dressed in her best clothes and jewels ready (as one of the audience pointed out) for the resurrection of her body on the last day. Her bones had signs of ill-health, and DNA testing showed that she had been born in Germany, so would have been an actual Saxon. This was completely fascinating.
Handling session
This was a small group at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, which I had never visited since it moved from its old site in Mill Lane to the Sidgwick site in (ahem!) 1982. A young and enthusiastic academic (whose name I have shamefully forgotten) passed round a selection of Greek pots and sherds to fondle. I had never actally held an ancient Greek pot in my hands, and this made me so happy!
They included some small perfume oil pots (Corinthian ware, black figures on a cream background)), a kylix (black figure) which was a shallow drinking cup of the kind that they used in symposia, and a fragment from the rim of a krater (large wine mixing vessel).
The kylix had been broken and mended many times, the first time in antiquity with small bronze rivets. As these were designed for drinking parties there were often funny or trick pictures which were revealed as the cup was emptied. The design in the centre of the inside might be a humorous or grotesque picture for the drinker to look at, and the outside was painted so that as it was tipped up the other drinkers could see it. There might be a pair of eyes so that as the holder drank he seemed to be looking out through it. These were the cups they used for drinking games and the presenter demostrated the flick of the wrist needed to send the lees flying across the room.
...and party!
After this we went into the cast gallery next door where there was a small reception with wine (classicists, what can you do!) and we had a lovely natter with some of the faculty members. I didn't happen to know anyone but the academics were very happy to talk about their specialisms and it was good to chat with the other attendees about what they were doing now. (A surprising number turned out to be in finance, so I wasn't the odd one out.)
Not quite a washout
Aug. 6th, 2023 06:54 amYesterday it rained. It was a day when coincidentally I had arranged to do two things in London. In the morning my Italian class was going to the Design Museum to see some Italian design (coffee machines, vespas, tower blocks etc), and separately M and I had booked a Myth Walk in London in the afternoon with T (a wander round statues, monuments and Roman-influenced architecture in central London). There were only two problems: the first, a very wet weather forecast; the second, a not quite a train strike. Trains would be working, but not normally.
We decided to go anyway. M gave the Design Museum a miss as he is not a morning person, and had been round it recently anyway. I met my classmates (and a couple of their Italian other halves) as planned at the station, and we got on a train. It had already started raining, so we were a little damp. Although we were on the platform when the train arrived we were so busy nattering (Italians, what can you do!) that it had already started to fill up and we couldn't all sit together. I was in a group of four seats with S (a Lithuanian) and her husband M (an Italian) and my teacher A-M. S speaks very fluent Italian due to her in-laws, and M, of course was a native. Unfortunately he speaks Bloke Italian, which involves a bit of slurring, with the result that I could only understand about half of what he was saying. Nevertheless I enjoyed listening to them and managed to interject a few remarks.
The train arrived late in London, and then the Tube also had delays, with the result that we got to the Museum about an hour later than expected. Of course the first thing we had to do was sit down and have a coffee. I have to say (as someone who is trying not to eat dairy, and has also given up coffee), I love the D-M's cafe. It is small, but does dairy-free Danish pastries, which are indistinguishable from the real thing, and a truly delicious turmeric latte. By now it was just after 1 pm, and although the trip to Trafalgar Square should only have taken half an hour, I wanted to leave plenty of time. I said goodbye and left without actually seeing any Italian design.
I managed to get out of the D-M by 1:15 pm and headed off to Earl's Court tube station. The trains were still erratic, and crammed with people (I was pretty much the only person wearing a face mask), but I made it to the rendezvous with T only 10 minutes late. I had texted him so they had waited for me. Meanwhile I received a text from M to say that he had not been able to get on a train that would get him to London in time, so he would not be there.
We had a pleasant couple of hours wandering along the Thames and up towards Covent Garden. T pointed out many interesting Roman-influenced bits of design. We were just about by Cleopatra's Needle when it began to pour again. I climbed into my waterproof trousers and put a cover over my backpack, and on we went. By the time we got to Somerset House it had more or less stopped, and we headed back down towards the Embankment. The walk ended at Blackfriars, from where I expected to get a Thameslink train directly home. I didn't, due to the industrial action, but I got a tube to King's Cross and there was a train home in ten minutes' time. Fortunately it was much less crowded.
I had a good time, and felt that I had given my wet weather gear a good try out. I was well protected from head to foot (thanks, Rohan clothes and Ecco walking shoes!). The backpack cover was a bit less effective, it was actually designed for my cycle bag and was a bit too big and kept slipping down, but still helped.
I'm glad that I went, but I'm sorry that I missed going round the D-M with the class. I have fond memories of last year's field trip, but clearly fate was against it this time. (I blame the Government!)
We decided to go anyway. M gave the Design Museum a miss as he is not a morning person, and had been round it recently anyway. I met my classmates (and a couple of their Italian other halves) as planned at the station, and we got on a train. It had already started raining, so we were a little damp. Although we were on the platform when the train arrived we were so busy nattering (Italians, what can you do!) that it had already started to fill up and we couldn't all sit together. I was in a group of four seats with S (a Lithuanian) and her husband M (an Italian) and my teacher A-M. S speaks very fluent Italian due to her in-laws, and M, of course was a native. Unfortunately he speaks Bloke Italian, which involves a bit of slurring, with the result that I could only understand about half of what he was saying. Nevertheless I enjoyed listening to them and managed to interject a few remarks.
The train arrived late in London, and then the Tube also had delays, with the result that we got to the Museum about an hour later than expected. Of course the first thing we had to do was sit down and have a coffee. I have to say (as someone who is trying not to eat dairy, and has also given up coffee), I love the D-M's cafe. It is small, but does dairy-free Danish pastries, which are indistinguishable from the real thing, and a truly delicious turmeric latte. By now it was just after 1 pm, and although the trip to Trafalgar Square should only have taken half an hour, I wanted to leave plenty of time. I said goodbye and left without actually seeing any Italian design.
I managed to get out of the D-M by 1:15 pm and headed off to Earl's Court tube station. The trains were still erratic, and crammed with people (I was pretty much the only person wearing a face mask), but I made it to the rendezvous with T only 10 minutes late. I had texted him so they had waited for me. Meanwhile I received a text from M to say that he had not been able to get on a train that would get him to London in time, so he would not be there.
We had a pleasant couple of hours wandering along the Thames and up towards Covent Garden. T pointed out many interesting Roman-influenced bits of design. We were just about by Cleopatra's Needle when it began to pour again. I climbed into my waterproof trousers and put a cover over my backpack, and on we went. By the time we got to Somerset House it had more or less stopped, and we headed back down towards the Embankment. The walk ended at Blackfriars, from where I expected to get a Thameslink train directly home. I didn't, due to the industrial action, but I got a tube to King's Cross and there was a train home in ten minutes' time. Fortunately it was much less crowded.
I had a good time, and felt that I had given my wet weather gear a good try out. I was well protected from head to foot (thanks, Rohan clothes and Ecco walking shoes!). The backpack cover was a bit less effective, it was actually designed for my cycle bag and was a bit too big and kept slipping down, but still helped.
I'm glad that I went, but I'm sorry that I missed going round the D-M with the class. I have fond memories of last year's field trip, but clearly fate was against it this time. (I blame the Government!)
Today we cycled over the the Fitzwilliam Museum to see a bijou exhibitionette about the inhabitants of Cyprus, Sardinia and Crete in prehistoric times. There was a number of delightful exhibits, mostly grave goods. They included:
There is also a soundtrack of waves (it is so unobtrusive that I kept thinking "My goodness, it is windy out there!" before I realised that it was being played inside the museum).
It wasn't hugely busy, so we had plenty of room to peer at the exhibits,and we had just time to go round it in the hour and a half before they chucked us out. Unfortunately it closes on Sunday, but tickets are free.
More details here: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/05/islanders-the-making-of-the-mediterranean-fitzwilliam-museum-cambridge-review-art-of-extraordinary-intimacy (sorry I can't get the link to work!)
- a bronze boat, perhaps 10 inches long, ox-headed with sides and mast ornamented with birds;
- the terracotta head of a god with a long combed beard and a moustache stippled under his nose;
- a bird-headed statuette of Astarte;
- a 4-horse chariot of baked clay with 3 riders in pointy hats (maybe a foot long);
- a clay statue, about a foot high, of a little girl in a linen frock holding a goose in one hand;
- a black wine cup with a handle, decorated in white swirls and red blobs, which would not have looked out of place on a Bloomsbury tea table;
- a jug decorated with stylised red swirls and between them lively black stags turning, rising on their hind legs, climbing the decorations.
There is also a soundtrack of waves (it is so unobtrusive that I kept thinking "My goodness, it is windy out there!" before I realised that it was being played inside the museum).
It wasn't hugely busy, so we had plenty of room to peer at the exhibits,and we had just time to go round it in the hour and a half before they chucked us out. Unfortunately it closes on Sunday, but tickets are free.
More details here: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/05/islanders-the-making-of-the-mediterranean-fitzwilliam-museum-cambridge-review-art-of-extraordinary-intimacy (sorry I can't get the link to work!)
We went to a concert on Friday night, in the chapel of St John's College. It was the Sixteen making their annual Choral Pilgrimage (sacred music sung in churches, chapels and cathedrals).
I had booked late so we didn't have seats in the chapel itself, but behind it in the antechapel. As advertised, we could see very little of the singers, and what we could see was far away, but it didn't matter. In a way, it was almost better not to be able to see, you had to focus on the music. There were no instruments and no amplification. As designed, the sound was picked up and resonated through the cavernous, stone-bound nave. Here, have a picture https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/chapel-choir. ; Mildly embarrassed to note that the chapel is Gothic revival, by George Gilbert Scott, rather than original 16th Century, but it fits in so well with the older College buildings that it didn't occur to me to think about it.
Anyway, the concert was wonderful. The programme was designed around the music of William Byrd, on the 400th anniversary of his death. He was a Catholic in Queen Elizabeth I's court, composing in the tradition of Renaissance polyphony, and the programme included music by his contemporaries and two modern pieces by Dobrinka Tabakova commissioned for the choir. I bought the CD, which is all the songs in the same order, and am listening to it now.
Edited to add: Sorry, the link doesn't work and I can't fix it, but if you try to use it it will take you to an error message on the college website, and then go to ABOUT, and scroll down to "Chapel and Choirs" it will take you there.
I had booked late so we didn't have seats in the chapel itself, but behind it in the antechapel. As advertised, we could see very little of the singers, and what we could see was far away, but it didn't matter. In a way, it was almost better not to be able to see, you had to focus on the music. There were no instruments and no amplification. As designed, the sound was picked up and resonated through the cavernous, stone-bound nave. Here, have a picture https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/chapel-choir. ; Mildly embarrassed to note that the chapel is Gothic revival, by George Gilbert Scott, rather than original 16th Century, but it fits in so well with the older College buildings that it didn't occur to me to think about it.
Anyway, the concert was wonderful. The programme was designed around the music of William Byrd, on the 400th anniversary of his death. He was a Catholic in Queen Elizabeth I's court, composing in the tradition of Renaissance polyphony, and the programme included music by his contemporaries and two modern pieces by Dobrinka Tabakova commissioned for the choir. I bought the CD, which is all the songs in the same order, and am listening to it now.
Edited to add: Sorry, the link doesn't work and I can't fix it, but if you try to use it it will take you to an error message on the college website, and then go to ABOUT, and scroll down to "Chapel and Choirs" it will take you there.
Heaven knows the weather's miserable now
Mar. 10th, 2023 08:10 amIt's sleeting now. I go out wrapped in my long winter coat, my nose and mouth covered, with hat and hood above. I try not to hunch against the wind, but it hurls sharp crystals at my eyes. The spring blossoms on the trees are holding up well, with just a scatter of white or pink on the ground below, but the magnolia trees are full of fat waxy candles waiting to bloom. If the flowers come out now it will be carnage.
Crow on a snowman
Mar. 9th, 2023 07:47 amYesterday it snowed, and some of it has settled. I went out for my morning walk in a thin, desultory rain. At the end of Cavendish Avenue is a block of flats, three storeys high with a big communal garden. Someone had managed to make a very small snowman, about a foot high, sitting in the middle of the grass. When I passed a crow was sitting on its head pecking away enthusiastically. Practising for Ragnarök?
Bird of prey
Feb. 22nd, 2023 03:35 pmI glanced out of the kitchen window this morning and saw a bird of prey perched on the back of the garden bench with its back to me, about 20 metres away. Its head was facing sideways so I could just see an eye and the curve of its beak. I rushed off to find my phone and got a series of very bad photos - I couldn't find my camera. Its back was was grey with small white patches on its shoulders, and there was a tawny fringe of fluff just on the outline of its silhouette, where the wings folded against its front. Looking at the bird book I think it was a sparrowhawk.
I was watching the sparrows in the winter honeysuckle and noticed them dipping their beaks in the flowers. They must have been seeking nectar, although I've never heard of sparrows doing such a thing.
Yesterday while working I noticed a red kite circling over the back gardens. In the distance a flurry of escaping pigeons.
A few days ago I saw a bird of prey soaring over Homerton College. I thought it was a buzzard but wasn't close enough to see clearly.
Yesterday while working I noticed a red kite circling over the back gardens. In the distance a flurry of escaping pigeons.
A few days ago I saw a bird of prey soaring over Homerton College. I thought it was a buzzard but wasn't close enough to see clearly.
(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2023 08:49 amIt's gone cold again. 0 degrees on my walk this morning, frost on all the gardens and the sky a boundless, disinterested blue.
Frosty morning
Jan. 22nd, 2023 09:44 amI haven't been sleeping well, and one of the things they recommend is going outside early in the morning to reset your body clock. I've been walking round the block in my pyjamas (and winter coat and hat!) as early as possible. This morning it was 9.30, the sun blasting a cold yellow fire from a pale blue sky, minus 4°C and the tall trees haloed every branch and twig in hoar frost. So beautiful.
Family of Sparrows
Jan. 8th, 2023 11:12 amLast winter I started putting out fat balls for the birds. Our front garden has tall hedges and is sheltered by these on two sides and by the house on the third. There is a tall bush (winter honeysuckle?) in one corner beside the road and a buddleia in the other.
I got a squirrel-proof bird feeder and put it on the ground between the two bushes. This was popular with the birds but also with slugs, so after a while I put it on a pile of stones. Then I noticed that the pigeons were eating rather a lot of the fat balls, so I only put one out at a time, which seemed to reduce pigeon enthusiasm. Then I saw one of the neighbourhood cats sitting before it in a meditative pose. I moved the feeder to the top of one of the recycling bins, which seems to have discouraged the cats and the pigeons, but also makes it easier to watch the small birds from our front windows. The only downside is that they do leave quite a bit of mess on top of the bin, with discarded seed cases and tiny crumbs of fat. Oh well.
This winter I added a peanut holder, but it isn't squirrel-proof, and I was hanging it from the buddleia until I realised that the squirrels could shin up the branches and have a feast. It's now hanging precariously from a slender twig of the honeysuckle. So far I haven't seen a squirrrel on it.
Our main visitors are a family of sparrows. There are at least five, two adults and three juveniles who were babies last year. Less frequently I see a male robin, and it is possible that there is a female in amongst the flock of small brown birds but I haven't managed to distinguish her yet. There are a pair of blackcaps, the male with a black hat on top of his head and the female with an elegant russet one. I also see the occasional bluetit, and today I saw a long-tailed tit. There are blackbirds sometimes but the main visitors are the smaller ones, which is just fine.
I got a squirrel-proof bird feeder and put it on the ground between the two bushes. This was popular with the birds but also with slugs, so after a while I put it on a pile of stones. Then I noticed that the pigeons were eating rather a lot of the fat balls, so I only put one out at a time, which seemed to reduce pigeon enthusiasm. Then I saw one of the neighbourhood cats sitting before it in a meditative pose. I moved the feeder to the top of one of the recycling bins, which seems to have discouraged the cats and the pigeons, but also makes it easier to watch the small birds from our front windows. The only downside is that they do leave quite a bit of mess on top of the bin, with discarded seed cases and tiny crumbs of fat. Oh well.
This winter I added a peanut holder, but it isn't squirrel-proof, and I was hanging it from the buddleia until I realised that the squirrels could shin up the branches and have a feast. It's now hanging precariously from a slender twig of the honeysuckle. So far I haven't seen a squirrrel on it.
Our main visitors are a family of sparrows. There are at least five, two adults and three juveniles who were babies last year. Less frequently I see a male robin, and it is possible that there is a female in amongst the flock of small brown birds but I haven't managed to distinguish her yet. There are a pair of blackcaps, the male with a black hat on top of his head and the female with an elegant russet one. I also see the occasional bluetit, and today I saw a long-tailed tit. There are blackbirds sometimes but the main visitors are the smaller ones, which is just fine.
I've just finished reading this as my "going to bed" book. I read non-fiction before going to sleep as I can put it down when I need to - fiction has its own rhythms that sometimes preclude slumber. So I've been reading it in short to medium tranches for the last few weeks. And it is brilliant! Scholarship worn lightly, full of insights, hugely entertaining, it runs from the Myceneans to Julian the Apostate. Hall explains who a lot of people were that I've only vaguely heard of - Plotinus, Plutarch, Origen, and many more, disentangling the Greek successors to Alexander in the Middle East -- and the index is comprehensive. I can look forward to re-reading it in a couple of years' time when I've forgotten all the detail again.
