Evening/Morning all: This week should bring more interesting news about Mallachie. Check the last few entries of the previous Weekly Chat for another photo of Queenie and other input from bloggers!
Hope you all got your clocks, microwaves, coffee pots, TVs, etc., organized for the next six months. And when did BST replace GMT, at least in the summer. In the US, standard and daylight savings time have had a long and fascinating (and apparently often confusing) history, given that we have three times zones for the contiguous states. DST is another matter, with most states changing but some not, but at least we don't have 30 minute increments like they do in Australia!
TerryM: The GE Help window is pretty clear re tours. I do recall that it took several "clicks" to get the thing started. Other folks commented on that and I had the same experience in the beginning but then it was okay. I tried to copy and paste some of the info onto your page, but it included boxes with images and they didn't copy. I'm sure other folks will have more helpful info. Good luck. Too bad lovely Queenie isn't around any more. When my daughter and I were away the other week, we stayed at a place which is a favorite "drop off" spot for folks wanting to "lose" cats. They had three cats when we were there, which hung around the garden entrance to the dining room waiting to be fed (by the staff). One night, the cats were served prime rib, all nicely chopped up for easy digestion!!!!
Alan: So. Are you treating us all to a trip to Loch Garten next year with your lottery winnings or will we be depending on the webcam again? :-)
Gary: Dying to hear about your English food outing (what was it really like?)
OG: We grow tomatoes outside here but my friends who do often fence them and other veggies in to keep various critters, including deer, from snacking on them; not to mention snails. My sister has expressed some frustration with EU rules - specifically not being able to buy French cheese off a market stall (I think that was it). Is following EU rules a bore or do you think it's generally for the good?
Margobird: My favourite remedy for a cough or a cold is: cover the bottom of a mug or heat resistant glass with one measure of whisky, top up with milk, heat to very hot in microwave, then add honey to taste - drink slowly, and if you don't feel any better after, have another one !!!
Saw a beautiful kingfisher on the 'One Show' tonight, these things are all too brief.
AQ: I enjoy a bit of sunshine, but start to wilt & get crabby if its more than 29 deg. You have my sympathy, its very tiring.
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Here is an interesting photo sent to me by an old friend, this appears to be a true story:
African Leopard aged 12, called 'Sheena' looking at an annoying little mouse after her dinner!!
Pics taken by a photography student at Santago Rare Leopard Project, in Hertforshire, England.
The mouse appeared as he started filming, and was not bothered or could not see his/her larger friend, who appeared to be undecided what to do about it! Here's another:
-----mouse kept on eating, and leopard gave up!!
Lindybird, thanks for the pictures. That mouse must have a death wish!!! Great stuff.
AQ, sorry, but in my book you are at HOT already. LOL I can't begin to imagine what 40 degrees feels like. Hope it cools down as they say. I think I would take my bed to the A/C ed living room!!
Dibnlib, sorry, just seen where you posted about that AA Gill bloke. He should be shot to see what he thinks of it.
I'll load the gun for you!! He is a smug creature, and not worth listening to, usually. At least there seems to have been quite a shocked response to his words and actions.
Off to watch TV in bed, Husband is out with friend, so I can be slobby!! -- 'Night all!
Won't be around Friday/Saturday so g'night all and have a good weekend - will share some photos eventually. Meanwhile, hope those who are poorly will soon be better (don't take all the remedies at once, Margobird!!!!), those who are cold will be warmer, the hot ones will cool down - oh, and good birding.
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Evening all
Gary: I love watching that stuff too. FYI, the book "The Perfect Storm" was good - had a lot more info about fishing, etc., than the movie.
AQ: How many days does it get over 104 F (40C) there? Farther up the coast, inland, it gets there easily during the summer, but 100 is rare here. These days, I can't stand anything over 85F (30C).
Lindybird: That's my kind of cure (though never seem to use it). What a brave mouse! Of course, he/she is all furry and the leopard may prefer everything already-skinned and unlikely to wriggle.
Tomorrow morning I'm driving up north to a little town called Sanger near Fresno to see a family I've know for eons. They used to grow table grapes, but got older and sold the land a couple of years ago but kept their lovely big old house, which looks out on rows and rows of vines with the Sierras to the East. One of the family now lives in Seattle and is down for the weekend, so I'm off for a couple of days of wonderful cooking (not mine!) and wine. Anyway, this is a long way of asking IF ANYONE WANTS TO START THE NEW THREAD ON SATURDAY EVENING. I usually do it early evening California time, but obviously nothing is cast in iron.
Annette - I know you didn't see the Natural World programme mentioned earlier on this blog, but it was about the Black Bears in Minnesota and the presenter (a biologist specialising in that breed) was at pains to explain that the Black Bears were more approachable than the Brown Bears - which I believe are "Grizzlies". I am of course open to correction about that point, if I am wrong.
Some of the Bears he has been studying/working with for about 40 years, he can feed by hand (good old peanuts!!) and fit radio collars without sedating the bears. Altogether an amazing film.
Enjoy your few days away and hope the weather is kind for you - which is more than can be said for the w/e forecast here or at LG - think the Goose Watchers on Sunday may well end up in the water with the Geese!
Liz LFW: Black bears are definitely more timid than grizzlies. Per Wikipedia: "[Black bears] are less likely to attack humans than grizzly bears and typically flee for cover as soon as they identify a human visitor. Deaths by black bear, though, are most often predatory, while the more numerous grizzly fatalities on humans are often defensive." An odd contradiction. The "Grizzly Man' documentary showed Treadwell also in close contact with bears and apparently trusting and trusted, but that didn't stop them from killing him, although nobody knows what triggered the attack (probably no peanuts!). We have a lot of black bears in California; it's not that unusual for them to tootle into neighborhoods, take a dip in someone's swimming pool, and end up on the 11'o'clock news!
Take our rain, please! It's raining AGAIN in Chicago but tonight the winds are whipped up so much it's raining horizontally. Ugh! We were out in front yard today raking leaves and the ground here is so saturated the rake was pulling up leaves and sod at the same time.
Hey Diane, heads up there in your part of the midwest cause The Eagles are coming! Yes, the Eagles (not the musical group) are on their northward migrations. Someone on another birder fourm I belong to posted a photo taken in the last day or so of a Bald Eagle seen about 50 miles S.W. of Chicago. Tres magnifique!
I don't know Annette, no offense but I found the Grizzly Man film very upsetting and frightening. We shut it off when the audio of the attack was played and I had kept my eyes covered during all the "Welp we found his legs over yonder and a arm a bazillion yards away, so we's guessin' they died all traumatical-like" portions replete with graphic close ups of the body parts. I'm paraphrasing of course and exaggerating a bit as well but really, I found it very disturbing. This guy was practically dressing up wild grizzlies and having a tea party with them AND THEN he brings his poor girlfriend to live in the middle of Not Another Human Being Within 500 Miles, U.S.A. and they die so horribly up there!?!?! I think it was a tragedy of epic proportions and oh how their loved ones must have felt.
Hello, everyone!
Caerann: I will enthusiastically watch for The Eagles (not the musical group!). I have seen two bald eagles in my lifetime, one in my area and one at Lake Monroe (where the re-introduction began). They are so majestic. I didn't get a very close-up view, but they were still extraordinary. I so hope the population continues to grow in Indiana.
It is raining here today, too, and will continue for a couple of days. I guess we should just be glad that we didn't have that blizzard (2-3 feet of snow!) that they have had to endure out west. Many highways are closed tonight. Truck drivers are all stuck out there.
re: bears. My ex-husband thought he was Earnest Hemingway (the writer, not the leaf blower), and when we were married, he used to drag me to remote Not-Another-Human-Being-for-Miles regions all over the eastern part of the country -- deep forests, backwoods hills, the Everglades, and a too-small boat in the Gulf of Mexico. In my travels, my commonsense always urged me to stay pretty far away from bears :-). Loved to look at them from afar, but gave them LOTS of space to go about their own business of being bears!