Weekly Chat, 6th December 2009

See that Annette has been too busy perhaps, to start a new week, so I'm doing the honours. Rather wet in this part of the world this morning, so doing lots of tidying & Christmas preparing stuff.

  • Thanks Sandy. Richard has written in very plain English and I feel answers all questions.

  • Lindybird said:

    Thanks to Tiger  for a very interesting link - we really do learn things all the time on this blog!

    Thanks to Sandy for tip that Richard had written more on the blog today. He always makes a lot of sense, to me. How great it would be if the pleasure we have had from the webcams could be spread to a lot more people, & all the birds would benefit in one way or another.

    Yes ones a whole lot more than osprology here! I find that my geography of west Africa has improved no end. Also I did not know that Western Sahara is not really a country but the ownership is contested by two other countries.

    I know all the ospreys have wintered in west Africa but other ospreys go to east Africa and even South Africa. The wonders of satellite tagging has allowed us to go along for the ride!

  • Tiger, I'm having a look at that site but can't see easily where the picture was taken. Where should I be looking or where was the area?

  • Tiger, that is a very interesting site and the picture is amazing.

    Patriciat, the power and phone companies have crews that sort out the lines and if it is bad, crews come in from other parts of the Country.

    Alan, sorry about the lights, frustration when that happens.

    Sandy, thanks for that, off to check it out

  • Unknown said:

     

    Very funny Alan, you look much better than those two

  • I just looked up the original article. The place was Watertown Massachusetts and it was made possible by the acquisition of a Hewlett-Packard HP-67 programmable calculator in 1976. Notice no Pentiums in those days.

    The result was first reported on page 536 of the July 1979 issue of Sky and Telescope. When I first saw it I was mesmerised by it. I managed to buy a 20 x 25 inch print in 1982. I had it framed and it hangs on my wall to this day.

    Interesting the first attempt in 1977/78 went wrong as the camera was pointed wrongly and so a year was wasted as the analemma went off the top of the picture.

    No one has ever yet taken an analemma from the southern hemisphere as far as I know.

     

  • Thanks Tiger. One State over so not far at all

    Been doing lots of boring inside jobs today:(

  • Thanks for the nice comments on Ted, there are more cat pictures on my page if interested.

    Auntie – he is totally neurotic so had to go to the vet to be slightly sedated.  I love your “sharp handshake”, that’s exactly what I’d get!  I do brush him and also carefully use scissors, but he gets fed up and it just got too much for me this year. He’s 8 and has a brother and sister but they are not so furry.  

    Alan – OH has just sent for A Life of Ospreys for me for Christmas.  We arrived at Boat of Garten on the day in May when Roy Dennis was there, but there were rather a lot of people gathered round him in the break so I was stupidly too shy to get it then. Auntie you could probably send Roy Dennis a bankers draft or something similar, ask at your bank. Actually, I see Lindybird got it from Amazon so you could do that.

    Gary – another beautiful Clover pic, nice snowflakes! I can’t imagine water going off and moving into shelters, we have it easy here.

    Tiger - What an interesting article on the Analemma Project, will read it in full later.

    Terry in Cumbria

  • Tiger, I have now read the full article. I had no idea of most of the information. When I first read your blog, my first question was, 'what is an analemma' ?  Thank you.