Evening all. Wonderful rainbow over Santa Barbara this afternoon; more like April with heavy showers then sunshine. Don't forget to check last week's chat for Tiger's link to the Roy Dennis site about a French osprey that's already completed its migration, and Patriciat's recommendations for places to eat in Grantown (for when we all go to visit OG's son!). :-)
Ha! Dibnlib's first loch has disappeared now, but not the second one.
Terry in Cumbria
Like so many, mostly sunny and milder today – but a flurry of hail for about two minutes after lunch! Afternoon shopping mission to Gretna Gateway – said we would only go for things on a list, but ended up browsing, so too much standing – serves me right, I volunteered not to use the scooter!
Need to catch up with some replies – and to any I miss, thanks for pix, links, news and general chat!
AQ – in my experience, teenage G-Kids improve once they mature a bit – say 18 to 20ish! Pleased your autumn has started well, still sounds hot to me, but if you’re comfortable with it, that’s good. NSW and Victoria Gold-Rush made interesting reading – thanks again for sharing your history with us all. Enjoyed the carbon paper etc memories shared between you, Annette and Diane while I was asleep! I am almost the same age as you, AQ, and was at Uni in the sixties protest era – we had the press arrive after a small protest, asking for a more newsworthy riot!
GeorgeG – thanks so much for remembering our son today – he got his flat keys and moved in his carload of stuff. He will be sleeping on an air-bed till he gets a new bed delivered and he still doesn’t know when Dau#1 will be delivering his bookshelves, chairs etc. He will have been working afternoon and evening today, so we haven’t heard anything since lunchtime – he works with young people, so a lot of his hours will be after school.
Margobird – pleased you had a good weekend – still thinking of you.
Heron – pleased you also had the golden orb above you today! Lovely glossy Starling! We hope to be able to use our camera again – it’s timer setting was permanently set to ten seconds before the shutter worked, although it showed as zero! But it seems to have righted itself now, so hopefully will stay that way – it was ok for non-moving objects, using tripod and cable, but no good for birds or hand-held!
Patriciat – so sorry about the sciatica – such a tiring pain – and an awful long wait to see a doctor!
Dibnlib – great view of Loch An Eilean – by the way, original has gone away again!!
Terry – Hope we’ll see you here some time – even if it is next year!! And you hadn’t already said it!
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Good morning. And a good one it is too. It is cold!!!! It was 12.4 C at 6.30 am (sunrise at 7.03 am). If this keeps up I shall need a jumper!! Not really - the max today should be 27 C. I do feel so reinvigorated with the drop in temperature. Mother Nature is misbehaving again - we saw the reports of the floods in Europe. I hope our ospreys are staying put in warmer climes.
It seems to be hit and miss with the photos - some are there, some are not. <sigh> Dibnlib's first pic is missing, while the second is showing. Lovely Loch an Eilean. Thank you Dibnlib. I want another Scottish holiday. Too bad it is so far.
Diane - I forgot to say thanks for the red-bellied woodpecker. My favourite is still the gorgeous pileated woodpecker with his jazzy headgear.
Brenda - Grandchildren are great - in small doses. I am glad I don't have to bring up children these days. But they do keep me "with it", otherwise I wouldn't really understand how the world has changed. LOL
Dibnlib's first pic has reappeared, so I shall try again with my Burra pic.
Burra. The mine in the background, with the open cut to the right of the restored engine houses. In the valley in the centre can be seen a few grey roofs of the former Redruth & Aberdeen. Kooringa is further along the creek, away to the left of the photo. Trees were taken from the hills for the mine and haven’t regrown. Photo taken from the site of Hampton in Nov 2007.
How exciting is this folks:
21:56 01/03/10 Osprey Wilts Coate Water CP
I saw the report on Bird Guides Alan,and my first reaction was,' Oh No.' Surely it is far too early. I hope it finds a good source of food and doesn't head North yet.
Evening/morning all: Fifteen northbound whales today, of which I saw 6, mostly blows but with a couple of "body" sightings and one fluke. The first calf probably won't show up until the end of March, at which point the whales will be much closer. The closest today was about a mile out.
dibnlib: Finally saw your lovely photo of Loch an Eilean; pretty but brrrrrr! looks cold. (I only saw the second posting.)
Alan: Thanks for blog heads up - do hope they get a thaw up there soon.
Heron: Thought of you today when a I saw a Great Egret in the parking lot near the bluffs; my camera was safely tucked away in the bookcase at home!
Patriciat: Sciatica can be debilitating. When mine flared up some years back, I couldn't sit in the car for long at all. Do hope it eases up. There's always ibuprofen - or alcohol.
OG: It's never too late to start a newsworthy riot!
AQ: Was watching news coverage from Santiago, Chile, this evening and the reporter down there made the remark that many tourists had been in the beach towns (which took a bad hit following the quake) because "it's the last holiday weekend of the summer." Agree that our birds might be better off staying put right now.
We had a "Tiger Woods" incident down the road last night - well, who knows what happened - but when I went to the gym this morning, noticed that someone had driven his/her car into their house!! The corner of the house was crumpled and that and the vehicle had tarps over them. Nice tire marks in the lawn!
Hi, all.
Caerann: Usually, the red-bellied woodpecker pair are year-round residents. However, I haven't seen them this winter until now. So they may have gone south when the weather turned really nasty, and they have just now returned. We are right on the line where birds have the option of migrating or toughing it out for the winter, and I don't think that for many species it's a genetically predetermined decision. They appear to make a conscious choice. During previous mild winters, I have seen lots of the regular birds remain, but this year I've mostly only seen the tough old crows, the pileated woodpeckers, and a few hearty red cardinals. Oh, and Poe and his mate, the ravens. I'm reasonably sure now that those two corvids are ravens. They croak instead of caw. They have those fancy little ruffled feathers on their chests. And they are the size of a small red-tailed hawk. Really big. According to the rule book, I don't think we're supposed to have ravens here. But somebody had better tell Poe.
By the way, have you ever seen a "dark phase" red-tailed hawk? If so, what did it look like? You don't need to answer right away. Job searching comes first. Good luck.
aquilareen: Your last installment of the SA history was extremely interesting!!! Thank you! Isn't it amazing that no SA gold escort was held up by bushrangers? With the price of copper today, thieves would not only steal the gold, but the ore from the copper mines, too -- in the U.S. anyway. Glad you are finally getting a respite from the scorching heat. I'm glad for you.
Alan: Thanks for the Holland owl cam links! Paul: I really liked that starling gate ornament photo. I copied it and made it my desktop wallpaper for this week. Thanks!
Patriciat: I so hope that your sciatica pain diminishes. A bloomin' shame that you can't get in to see the doc any sooner. I know it really hurts. I have a bit of rhematoid arthritis, and I take fish oil to relieve pain and inflammation. It works for me and I think it's safer than drugs, but its use is controversial in the medical community.
Brenda: You wrote: "Diane, you always seem to be so busy, with endless stamina and very little sleep." Like all owls, I'm active at night. When the sun comes up, I just doze and preen a lot. LOL I hope that Pete's Pond can be rescued, too.
Annette: I hope you find the birding book that you're looking for. In the meantime, www.enature.com has a nice advanced search engine that lets you search for birds by region. They have very complete info about specific birds. I know you want a book you can carry though. http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/search_advanced.asp 15 whales!!! Yay!!! What a wonderful experience. It sounds like you're a very skillful whale watcher. I agree that the ospreys would do well to take their time getting to their summer nesting sites -- not only in the UK but here, too. You didn't see any golf clubs lying around the site of that car-hits-house crash did you? :-)
Good Tuesday to all.
Diane - Last year when we discarded an ancient TV for the council "hard rubbish" collection, scavengers took the cord only. For the copper! I guess if they toured the suburb they would have a small collection. But was it worth it? Some years ago after I had arthroscopic surgery on one knee, the osteo-specialist recommended I take fish oil & glucosamine.
Continuing SA history . . . To curb the influx of Chinese to the goldfields in 1855 the Victorian government imposed a £10 tax on each Chinese arriving. To avoid this, ships called into Robe (in SA’s south-east) and Port Adelaide. From there the hapless Chinese walked to the goldfields. Some 45 ships landed more than 20,000 Chinese at Robe. Encouraged by Victoria, the South Australia government later imposed a poll tax on Chinese and limited the number and proportion allowed on board. Soon the streets of Robe were deserted.
In 1860 with the colony suffering drought, another copper discovery was made on the Yorke Peninsula. Mines opened, smelting works were set up (using coal from Newcastle in New South Wales), more emigrants arrived, most from Cornwall. The mining towns of Kadina & Moonta and the port of Wallaroo became known as the Copper Triangle or "Australia’s Little Cornwall". In 1875 Moonta was the largest town in SA after Adelaide. However insanitary conditions led to many deaths from typhoid fever, TB and other diseases, particularly children. Today the Cornish tradition is still very strong with the biennial Kernewek Lowender Festival. Cornish pasties are essential!
The Broken Hill silver, lead & zinc mine was set up in the 1880s. Although across the border in NSW, Broken Hill was closer to Adelaide than Sydney, so SA benefited. Many miners travelled from Burra and Moonta.