Chat Extravaganza Sunday Feb 21st

Auntie: You are correct. Paddy and Murphy are Irish. I am glad you got the joke.I appreciate that it is a bit difficult for people in Finland to understand Irish jokes told by a Scotsman on Tracy Island. LOL

Morning all:  Here's a link: http://thelegendofpalemale.com/HOME.html that includes some clips from the film. I didn't realize the imortant roles that several other people played in this story - Charles Kennedy (now deceased), the poet/photographer who took the film-maker, Frederic Lilien, under his wing when he was looking for a way to start another career; the older gentleman (also deceased) who lived in the neighboring building and let Kennedy and Lilien sleep on his verandah close to the 529 building so they could  film the birds, I also didn't realize that Linken wasn't in at the beginning of the story, but when he did enter, he arrived with massive lenses and a monitor that allowed people down at the pond in Central Park to see the birds close-up while he took photos. Also, that Mary Tyler Moore, who lived in the birds' building, bailed Linkin out of jail when he was arrested after the nest was taken down. I also didn't know that Pale Male and Lola - his fourth mate - have not had a succesful "hatch" since the nest was reinstalled.  The film stretched over several years and although Pale Male and Lola haven't had any chicks lately, another bird that resembles his coloring and is named Pale Male Jr. has established a nest in the Trump building (I think that's where).  It's hard to describe how moving - but also funny - the film was.  I do hope you get a chance to see it at some point..... harrass your local TV stations!  And if there are questions, do ask me since so much was packed into the film I probably have forgotten some info.

Auntie: Enjoy your week off, but hope the weather "warms" up, Finnish-style, so you can be outdoors just a bit.

Lindybird: Sounds like a good day to spend on the couch under a blanket.  Where are you going for your trip?  Re Sassy, Phoebe "had" her - or laid the egg at least - the same afternoon (if I remember rightly) as Stormy. Don't know if that's unusual or not, but the weather was really bad, California-style, that week....probably a combination of factors, but from the sound of it, Phoebe isn't wasting time setting up another nest.

Alan: Hilarious joke!!  Fab image of starlings - we simply don't get sights like that; wonder what part of Europe they go to - and are they going to warmer weather (even warmer than a UK summer)? Lovely photo of Norfolk eagles.

Patriciat: How clever of you. Larger-than-life type! Certainly gets our attention!  :-)

TerryM: Well, the movie's gone, but Stella Mares is still there - it's lovely, especially the greenhouse, which actually was a greenhouse. They have a "bistro menu" reader "cheaper!" on weeknights, so it only costs part of an arm and a leg.

Emma Peel: Good to see you, but what is CGI?  My grandson's girfriend works part-time in a movie theatre and the only description I can get out of him about verious films is "gnarly," which, according to one on-line (urban) dictionary, is a step beyond "radical."

dibnlib: Lovely (but chilly looking) scene.

OG: Gosh. Such a romantic proposal. Good for him - and glad it's happy news for the family.

Gotta rush. Back later.

Oak Creek Power Plant (Owl nest) (Oak Creek, WI) GHO has noticed she is being watched:

7 owlets at Starr Ranch clip:

http://tinyurl.com/yh4ljtq

Alan: The Starr Ranch clip is great. Thanks - and it's also "down the road" in Orange County.  (But where is everybody?)   Rather eerily quiet .....      If I were a Fundamentalist (I think that's the group), I'd be inclined to think everyone had been "raptured"  (that's entirely different from "raptored."  :-)

All the sentient biologicals have been enslaved by thinking machines. In other words they are all watching the tele.

I’m here!  Been planning veg plots for this year, and listing seeds we need to buy!  Makes me feel spring will come eventually.

Annette – thanks for reviewing the Palemale & Lola film for us – will watch out for it having read the news stories following an earlier link on here.  

Alan - thanks for all the owls – GHO has such a quizzical look on her face - and the seven Barn Owl babies are fantastic, varying in size as they do and sitting together like that – as I said earlier, I hope there is plenty of food so No 7 doesn’t become No 1’s dinner!

I've just popped in for a quick read Annette, !  Hello and good night from Bristol everyone;  it's just gone 21.30 hours and I'm tryng for a hot bath and early bed.

Enjoyed the owllets Alan  thank you, although at first I was a little nervous that the clip might show the eldest eating the youngest !!   Seven is rather a lot of mouths to feed.

I got enslaved by the 'new' Star Trek movie  .....  just excellent .. my hiking friend Sharon brought it over yesterday for me to borrow.

Nite nite all.

Hi everyone.

Thanks to Caerann for starting this extravaganza.  Missed a couple of days at the end of the last weekly chat, so had to go through the last two or three pages.  Thanks to all for the great posts, wonderful links, and fantastic pictures.  All top quality as usual. :-)

Really sad news about Sassy.  But as has been said by many, it was probably to be expected.  Here's hoping the other chicks thrive.

Anyway onto the new week.

Caerann:  Very understandable you're not very enthused at the prospect of more snow.  I always get the feeling that snow looks lovely at first but we can get bored with it after a while.  Thanks so much for the Derby peregrine link.  Great action.  Thanks for the Dutch link.  Like you I can't speak Dutch but the videos are brilliant.

AQ:  Thanks for posting more SA history.  Fascinating reading.

Annette:  The Legend of Pale Male sounds like an amazing film.  I'd be delighted if they'd broadcast it on TV, this side of the pond.

Auntie:  Hope you enjoy your week off, and the weather heats up enough for you to be able to enjoy some time outdoors as well as indoors.

Tiger:  Such a sad story about that poor osprey.  Don't know if this makes sense or not but perhaps when ospreys nest so close to people, signs could be put up to alert people to watch out.  This might reduce such sad events.

Lindybird:  Hope you get back to full health soon for your holiday.

Alan:  Like the joke.  Keep them coming.  Brilliant starlings bunny.  What a great shot of the eagles.  They do look as if they're in conversation.  Lovely owl picture.  Thanks for the clip of seven wonderful owlets.

dibnlib:  That's a smashing shot.  Wonderful landscape.

OG:  That's wonderful news about your grandson, announcing his engagement.  Many congratulations.

A very happy Sunday to all.



Paul.

OG: Hurray! Nice to see you. What a lovely thing - planning for spring.  OH and I just came back from picking up a sleeper/sofa - a nice little one (a double, not queen or king)  in a soft blue denim color - for "my" room for when grandkids/etc come to stay. Thing is, it''s got a heavy bed frame and we had a right old time getting it into the house. The dolly was too small for the sofa frame, but we finally figured out that if we just put it under one end, we could both lift theother and push. Anyway, got it in place and realize now we can't open the bed part 'coz the piano is in the way!  Still don't need it tonight so it's going to stay there for now.

The other film I saw last night was A Murder of Crows, which was about a face recognition study done on crows by a prof in the Seattle area. In the study, researchers wore masks to capture grown crows that live around the campus, then ringed and sat-tagged the crows' offspring. The researchers then occasionally passed under the birds nest and found the adult crows did a lot of scolding when they were wearing the masks, but tended it ignore them when they weren't.  Anyway, the premise of the study was that crows are known to communicate with each other (apparently, crows have been known to avoid for up to two years a place where another crow has been shot or otherwise killed). In this case, the researchers wanted to see if the offspring would be "told" by the parents that the people with scary masks were to be avoided.  They tagged about 7 chicks, but 6 (I think those are the numbers) were killed, leaving just one that the reseacher had to chase around downtown Seattle to find.  He then put on his mask (to the consternation of some bipeds), and pursued the bird, which fled at first then finally turned around and started the scolding call.  I personally felt the study needed a more compelling success sample to reach the conclusion that some communication had taken place in that instance.   Other parts of the film were equally fascinating: In New Caledonia, off the African coast, they did a really interesting study that showed that particular specie of crow creating tools to prod for bugs in trees. What was so remarkable was that the crow had to "construct" a hook at the end the twig to reach the bug. No other crows have been seen to do that. Also, they constructed a puzzle for these birds that consisted of putting a piece of food in an inaccessible area, then providing not just one, but two and three "planning" steps that the bird had to go through to get the food. The most complex involved hanging a twig from a long piece of string - the bird had to figure out how to get it's hands on the the twig, which then provided a means to reach a larger twig in a "cage." When the bird manipulated the larger twig out of the cage with the smaller one, it could then reach the food.  Those reseachers figured that crows are intelligent as chimps and as ingenious as some human toddlers!! 

Anyway, this has been a very long post. Sorry to hog the page. Back later to see if anyone else has shown up.