Passing clouds of inconsequential observations
This morning saw the return of a Heron to the local pond. A couple of years ago there was a heron nesting in a tree overlooking the pond. Time will tell if this one decides to stay.
This afternoon saw the return of an Osprey to the nest at Loch Arkaig in Scotland. The nests are monitored by The Woodland Trusts‘s Osprey Cams so the hatching of chicks can be followed through the summer.
It looks like the blue tits have returned to the hole in the wall at the rear of my home to build a nest.
The micro.blog March photo challenge provides a word as a prompt to inspire the images for that day. Today’s prompt was Early. So as I was awake anyway I recorded the chorus of birds:
Those more able to identify the birds than I may care to compare with this recording from April 2018:
At least we are no longer disturbed by the May 2021 woodpecker hammering away at 5am:
The River Mersey swollen with the recent rains.
Another sunny afternoon tempted me out again. This time I found the Secret Lake which is neither a lake nor particularly secret.
But it is good to see a natural oasis amidst the suburban sprawl. Then upwards and, since Martine pointed it out, it is definitely upward, to the reservoir again which had noticeably more waterfowl this time.
On TV quiz shows one frequently see old people explaining that now they are retired there is so much to do they wonder how they ever found time to go to work. Despite my best intentions to spend my retirement catching up with all the stuff I have never really got to grips with – half understood software, half learnt programming languages, books that were purchased but never read etc. – the torrent of new stuff continues to overwhelm. I should draw a line and say no more… but
The update to Logic looks exciting and Arturia’s extended free licence for Pigments and Analog Lab shouldn’t be wasted. And I am already way behind on the Tidal training sessions. Not to mention the endless opportunities to explore the musical backwaters available to stream.
And then I am about to throw out the sourdough starter I started a few days ago when the weather was warm but abandoned when the weather turned colder – my home is not warm enough ordinarily to sustain the beast, but, I think, ‘it does smell like a good starter’, so I gave it a feed and a drink and it has been bubbling away all day; so the weekend will be spent cultivating some bread.
Not to mention being on fox cub watch…
There is no time for this 100 day nonsense…
Yadit #100DaysToOffload
As if there is not enough to worry about these days NASA’s Climate website provides data from satellites that are monitoring the current status of the Earth’s climatic conditions.
Who does not love the notion that we exist primarily as an environment for bacteria and viruses to live? I know I do and I am.
As we are aliens on planet bacteria it is hardly surprising that our hosts live all over us in return for letting us live here. In fact we probably would not survive here without their help.
It is not known just how many billions of them live on and in our bodies. It is popularly thought that the bacteria outnumber human cells in the body by 10 to 1 but that figure is disputed and it may be that the numbers of bacteria and human cells are about equal. The numbers reduce briefly after a bowel movements but increase with just about everything we touch.
Not to mention the animals that live on us.
