During this strange period of weather even the skies seem to be odd. Picture 1 is looking due West at just after 5am this morning, out of my bedroom window. It is hard to believe that this is reflected light from the Sunrise in the East which wasn't due anyway till 5.16am. It actually seems as if the light is emanating from the West.And what with those peculiar moving searchlight type lights the other night !
Anyway nothing to stop us going over to Tracy's for lunch. Just before we set off I looked out of the kitchen window and there was this bird ! See Picture 2, and from my Collins Wildlife book I feel it is a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker although the picture wasn't spot on, and it is reputed to be 'not common'. This chap was rooting for worms in the lawn, like a blackbird or a thrush.
Tracy looked lovely, as always, and she had made a smashing 'moussaka' for lunch. Y and I still call it 'moose arker' and can no more take to ' moosackka' than we can to 'boudicca' for 'boadecia'. Anyway, how can an expert possibly know how Bodecia was pronounced in A.D. 60? I've always considered it pretentious claptrap but if anyone can come up with a convincing argument I am prepared to yield.After our moose-arker we went up to Tracy's top garden and enjoyed her garden table and big parasol while we had our cheese and biccies and coffee. As agreed we had taken the cheese board ready prepared including grapes, and that which we didn't eat we brought away with us. It works well as a system because what was happening was that T would do a cheese board and then insist we brought the remnants away, because she doesn't eat cheese when catering for herself.
And Tracy says she wants to do New Year's Eve again. This will be a popular decision because everyone enjoys it so. Last year David and Helen did it but we couldn't go as we had agreed to go to neighbours (which was second best anyway).
Just had Ray on, via Google Chat and he hasn't been too good having to have a fortnight in bed. Fortunately he seems to be 'on the mend' and sounds in good spirits. Couldn't raise David either landline or mobile so can only assume they are still away.
No good quotes on my iGoogle page today, so I will raid my own personal piggy bank of Chaucer. This one served me well throughout my working life:-
"Beware the smyler with the knyf beneath the cloke"
Gentle Dan Chaucer 1343 - 1400
If you wonder where the 'gentle dan' comes from in place of Geoffrey; Samuel Johnson called him that.
.........Must have an early night. I need some sleep. Hope everybody else sleeps well. Nighty night.
.........Must have an early night. I need some sleep. Hope everybody else sleeps well. Nighty night.
2 comments:
I am less concerned about the early hours light in the west than the flying saucer, centre picture.
I suppose your searchlights could have been the aurora borealis (I know someone who saw it some years ago in Ollerton when returning home from the Welfare).
My bird book tends to suggest that your bird is the 12” Green Woodpecker (rather than 6” Lesser Spotted which is more likely to be confused with 9” Great Spotted). The Green W feeds on grassland, hopping and then standing almost upright, and neighing like a horse (or Little Grebe).
Well done anyway. And nice bee yesterday.
I too am an unreforemd 'Boadicea' man. And why has Danzig become Gdansk, and Bombay, Mumbai?
But who am I? I can’t pronounce Paris correctly unless it is preceded by ‘Gay’.
And nobody except an Arab knows how to spell Ghaddafi.
I was going to say it was a young green woodpecker (or 'yaffle' as my Kent-born-and-bred grandfather called it). My reasoning being that it has a bit of gold/yellow under its tail, and neither the lesser or greater-spotted sort have that, on them it is scarlet.
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