Weekly Chat, Sunday February 6, 2011

TerrM - do you then save each snap after taken, I wasn't at first and wondered why I couldn't upload , then I twigged it. Also have to be done in the jpg format.  I'm sure you are doing that so don't mean to sound patroniising.

It looked as if one of Phoebe's would go this afternoon, talk about trying to hog the nest and the vigorous wingercising going on - but not to be yet. They are just sitting contented at present.

No Lynette, the problem I (and Annette I think) were having last year was if I clicked on the screen it would make the noise to whizz it away to MWSnap, but then the pic was just black.  This turned out to be because the frame wasn't over the pic, but when I moved it, the pic was still moving, it wasn't a capture, just the live cam.  Anyway, the first time I tried and it did that I just carried on trying and eventually one day the pic froze (snapped) as it should.  Then when I tried it later it went back to moving and hasn't worked since, but only on the LG cam, not, for instance, just now when I tried it on Phoebe's.  So nothing to do with saving, one of those intermittent faults you get on cars and computers so nobody believes you!

I see TerryM, thanks for putting me right.

Pics of penguins in Antarctica.

Arrived home an hour ago from Bird Club – minus a few £££s!  Excellent talk and film by brilliant wildlife photographer – see www.gordon-yates.com  Just “had to” buy two of the photos he was selling – a Finnish male Osprey with Fish and a Female Barn Owl with Field Vole – these are my birthday present for next month (OH has already ordered two railway books for his)!  Also bought DVD of Pennine Birds, and then there was a table selling jams and chutneys made by students at the Agricultural College – sharing their takings with the Bird Club – so bought apple chutney and plum jelly!  But we did win a raffle prize – actually two of our numbers came up, but we said to redraw second one.  All-in-all, a very good evening.

Just watching Trucker Steve - he's about 40 minutes east of Palm Springs - and yes, the mountains do get close (especially near Palm Springs, where you'll see Mount San Jacinto on the left and the "back door" to Joshua Tree National Monument on the right). Those desert mountains change color as the sun progresses across the sky - gold and pink in the morning; pink, purple, blue and gray in the evenings - you can see for miles and miles and miles out there.  A few miles beyond Palm Springs and you get the LA-area mountains (with the ski resorts of Big Bear and Arrowhead) on the right. Mount San Jacinto and the LA area mountains are forested at the higher elevations.  It may look flat, but the hills are a constant companion on each side of the highways throughout the southwest - for really flat you need to see Kansas, where "you can see from here to next week)!!   if you look at a topographical map, it's all a gentle slope downhill from Utah to the west coast.  Looks like poor Steve is going to be catch the tail end of the LA area rush hour; wonder where he'll stop for the night....  His clock is showing Mountain time - an hour ahead of the west coast states.

Oops, he's pulled off the freeway - some lovely views here - see the palm trees??  :-)  Indio (just east of Palm Springs) is famous for its date farms.

Annette: Thanks very much for the tour guide info! I was just happy to see bright sunshine and so much blue sky!!! It's going to be -17.7 to -20.5 C  (0 to -5 F) here tonight. I thought his drive was beautiful. I would not want to drive in L.A., though. That traffic would scare the dickens out of me.

Diane: Well Steve has stopped in Coachella, just east of Indio (we may stay in Indio Sunday night). Smart guy, but depending on when he starts in the morning, he could still hit LA-bound traffic. It seems from his blog that he'll stay flexible in terms of the exact route. I'll check in early and see what he's up to.   Also see the Midwest is being clobbered again by yet another nasty storm. 

Emma: Good to see you. Don't work too hard if you can help it.  How is Steed?

Alan:  Hope Scotland prevailed - and yes, agree with Emma about the half-time fish comment.

AQ: I have these nifty desktop "gadgets" on my new laptop, one of which translated your Celsius into Fahrenheit and I see it's - ugh - 93F!!   It's a dry heat, right?

TerryM: Haven't tried MWSnap on this new computer. I must try again - soon.

OG Congrats on your win; glad you had a good day and evening.

Off to watch Nova ("How Smart Are Animals?")

Stay tuned.

Nova had a segment on a Border Collie named Chaser who, on command, could pick a specific toy by name out of a large pile of toys. The remarkable thing was that when the researcher introduced a completely unfamiliar toy that Chaser had never seen before, the dog was able to infer which toy (in this case, a stuffed "Darwin") to bring from the pile (i.e. strange name must be that strange toy). Apparenly, Border Collies have the genome that makes them especially able to make this kind of association. Now we're on to dolphins....

Morning all. Just a quick post before heading off to run some errands - doesn’t snow now, sun is almost up and shining temp minus 18C so it is a great weather for driving.

There is a birding station in Estonia where they see loads of White Tailed Eagles - also young ones from Finland including one of the satellite tracked ones. Here is a link to that stations diary where you can see some amazing photos! http://tarsiger.com/paivakirja/?asema=sorve This is one of the funniest ones

Have a nice day everyone!