Weekly Chat, Sunday, February 28, 2010

I'm watching Lily here, and you're right, Annette, she's being very vocal!

http://www.bear.org/website/lily-a-hope/live-den-cam.html

BTW I looked up your Lake los Carneros on Google, and I'm ready to come for a walk with you...just get my shoes on...

Poor little Stumpy, OG, although I expect he's adapted to it now, as long as the girls don't mind, they probably think it makes him more interesting.

AQ, also googled your restaurant, lovely views while eating good food, lucky you.

Great to hear your good news, Margobird, relax now.

I have male friends who only go shopping when they need something, but I always say, how do you know what you want if you don't go and see what there is???

Unknown said:

Awake now and see Diane, that I left out the word "visitor" after "your late-summer" in my earlier post.

Cirrus: Bubble wrap?  I was wondering if there's some secret to all this clean up business. We don't have fat balls though.

Alan: Yes, well, men are known to be more linear thinkers. My approach depends on how much time I have, but when the shoe gods are smiling on me, time becomes irrelevant.   :-)   Your garden center outings sound like a fun routine.   That San Jose webcam (live) must be the same one the birding lady in Chaucer's told me about -  http://www2.ucsc.edu/scpbrg/nestcamSJ.htm   It's pretty far from the next - we're just spoiled I guess.  .How do you sneak up on those birds to get such great shots!  :-)

dibnlib: Don't you hate it when you show up all ready to exercise and can't for some reason. The pool at the Y, where I go, gets closed now and then for the same reason. Fortunately, I tend to use the aerobic/weight equipment. The Lily site I use is http://www.pixcontroller.com/WebCam/BearDenWebCam.htm  Here's another site for Lilly that Sue C (I think) posted - it's the You Tube video site for Lily wbcam highlights.. http://www.youtube.com/user/gypsylinda#p/u/0/VfmxDByCU4s  Was on the live cam a few minutes ago and Hope was makng an incredible racket for such a tiny thing.

SueC: Thanks for yet another webcam!

Geez. Seems like a lot going on in the world of birds today. Thanks for updates, folks. Now must really get moving. Take care everyone.

hAnnette: Just to let you know that the webcam in San Jose zooms in and out  randomly..so you'll see a shot close up and then it will zoom out. When the eggs hatch, it zooms in more often.

dibnlib I'm not from Nethy, worse luck, but we've been self-catering there, twice most years, for almost 20 years, so feel like a local!  Hope to have a few days there in May, if I can persuade OH that it can be fitted into the dog agility schedule, and have booked for a week in October.  May would allow me to visit LG and maybe to see an osprey fishing at Rothiemurchus fish farm.

Check out this site devoted to Finnish osprey Jukka . The born to travel video is well worth watching:

http://www.luotio.fi/jukka_main.html

Molly settling down on her 6 eggs:

Margobird – I thought my three short breaks was a lot to have booked already, but you seem to be booked up well ahead!  Enjoy your Chinese meal on Sunday – I have to be very careful with Chinese food (although I generally like it) due to bad reaction to monosodium glutamate – not so bad if I have it at lunchtime and drink gallons of water!

Cirrus – thanks for reminder of Mull White-tailed Eagles.  Do be careful on your garden steps if they are greasy from fat-balls … later … and don’t slip on the bubble-wrap either!

Annette – sorry you woke up too soon, hope you got a bit more sleep after that.  We still have seedlings germinating where the feeders were until last year – and it seems some of the seeds were hemp, so I get really worried that I could get falsely accused … – “sorry, officer it was the birds who planted them!).  We now have the feeders on the deck where any droppage can be brushed or hosed away.

Alan – <<Beaks remind me of Curlews>>  Avocet beak curves up, Curlew beak curves down!  Add my advice about mint – it really does love to spread.  We “found” our mint today.  Because we hadn’t tidied properly in autumn, various things were looking rather dead in pots, and containers near house had been moved when roof trim was replaced, so couldn’t identify from positions.  I chopped down some “dead sticks” and OH came along to dig up roots …  lovely aroma and healthy new underground shoots – voilà…mint!  Thanks for peregrine news and picture, and north-bound Osprey news from France.  Saw your capture of Molly earlier – but it’s now disappeared – was watching her last evening during a boring phone call – she seemed quite restless.

Dibnlib – sorry you had to miss your swim – hope you manage it at the weekend.

SueC – thanks for Florence links for Peregrines.

TerryM - agree with you and Annette – Hope is very vocal – and loud for such a baby!

 

Greenhouse now “spring-cleaned” – still loads to tidy in the garden, but I guess greenhouse is where it all starts!  So lucky with this dry weather – and warmer daytime temps too – got up to 10°c this afternoon – which I think is around normal for early March.

OG - Only a few of the National Archives records are online. It comes down to money to digitize. As always.

<edit> Gremlins attacking my text again

Hi Everybody!,

Despite rumours to the contrary, I'm still here, alive an kicking, and keeping abreast with happenings on here via e-mail notifications, so i haven't been in a position to respond to postings within a reasonable enough time to avoid confusing everybody with my posts.

I've still been on my reading binge, devouring all I can find of R F  Delderfield's novels.  While that's been happening, the heat that prompted the binge has disappeared and we haver slipped gracefuly into my favourite season of the year - Autumn.  We are currrently enjoying days of gentle rain and cool temps, which look as though they will extend at least for the next week.  On days when it's been overcast rather than raining, I've been tearing myself from my books to help Art (my OH) put our garden in order.  We have over 2 acres, so that's a big job, particularly as it was left pretty much to its own devices during the heat of summer.  While some parts of Australia have gone from drought to floods lately, our reprieve from drought is still very fragile.  We need much more rain, continued over a couple of months, to get us out of drought.  It looks as though we will have enough rain for the local farmers to sow their winter crops, but then we need follow-up rain to keep those crops growing.

We've also had a lovely visit over the last few days from my brother and his wife, who live in Queensland.  These visits have been very rare, and we have had so much to share and discuss that the time has just flown, and very pleasantly at that!  We are all much closer and happier after the visit! ;-)

I had two pieces of good news yesterday from the one source, neither of which was unexpected.  My youngest daughter Linda and her fiance have set the date for their wedding for 5 June, in Fiji! Linda has a lovely daughter from a previous relationship, but she is hearing Nature's clock ticking, and she was very pleased to discover yesterday that she is pregnant again!  What a difference a generation makes in attitudes and priorities, eh?  I'm very pleased for them both on both scores, though.  They are having the ceremony in Fiji because it's so cost-effective for them, and most of the families will have no trouble flying other there for the wedding.  However, on pensions, it puts it out of the question for me, even if I went alone, instead or with Art.  Oh, well, can't be helped.

The 'quiet time' osprey-wise id drawing to a close, and I'll soon be back chattering away every day with the rest of you!

My text went peculiar - it does that occasionally - and I had to delete the bold text and the out-of-order text. Really weird.

Annette & Diane- Sorry to disappoint your visuals of moi at our rally. It was very tame. Probably because of the news breaking that morn of the change of heart. About 40-50 turned up, a few held placards, someone tried to get us to sing a protest song. Cameraman & sound man from one TV station turned up. They interviewed a mouthpiece but used earlier footage on the news. After half an hour my friend & I took ourselves to the library to work. When Himself dropped in much later there were still ½ dozen stalwarts. Just a little publicity . . . since the rally the branch has been busy.

Diane- Ah, thank you for the pileated woodpecker.

The gremlins are having fun with Alan’s photos. The GHO- gone again. The Zurich falcon- Wow. "Stop spying on me."

Adelaide is a-jumping. The Fringe continues. Last weekend the Adelaide Festival of Arts opened. This w/e add WOMAD (World of Music in Adelaide), and a long weekend for the Adelaide Cup (horse-racing). Next w/e is some kind of car race. So many tourists around. Plus the universities & TAFEs have started their classes (with 25,000 overseas students).