The above picture was taken with the intention of producing a 'judge-botherer' for the upcoming EPS season. I shall enjoy being told there is "far too much in it" and "there are actually 3 pictures here". This time I'm not asking the Chocolate Box manufacturers to form a queue, but the Jig Saw makers.Almost at the beginning of this post I must thank Bungus for pointing out that yesterday wasn't Sunday but Saturday. I understand an Alzheimer's test is to know which day it is, along with the name of the Prime Minister. So easy that one - it's Mrs Thatcher !
Quiet a big garden-bird event this morning. Around 6.30am we had a visit from a young Buzzard.Help with identification isn't really necessary with this one because my Collins Wildlife book was quite clear on the matter. Although,modestly, I think my picture is better than theirs.
It looks quite a young one but even so, his/her? presence was quite intimidating for the other birds who are usually at this time breakfasting boisterously at the feeders. There wasn't one in sight and they kept quiet. Collins say they 'perch for a long time on posts and dead brances'. This is true - he was there a good ¾ of an hour.
As David said, when we spoke, 'Buzzard' sounds a very proper old English name for a bird. My Etymology Dictionary yields the following -
- buzzard
- c.1300, from O.Fr. buisart "inferior hawk," from buson, buison, from L. buteonem, acc. of buteo a kind of hawk, perhaps with -art suffix for one that carries on some action or possesses some quality, with derogatory connotation.
Picture 3 is another of Majorca from David's mobile phone and sent via text and the internet.
To my eye the quality is incredible. All the detail on the distant shore-line, foreground
sharpness and good colours.
We are going over for coffee in the morning,
after my blood test, and I must ask him how to send picture by phone. Both phone to phone, and phone to e-mail, because I've never succeeded with either.Nice e-mail from Reg announcing their return from holiday. They had a good time with reasonable weather and interesting things to do, like buying a Nikon 70-300 VR lens. I'm so envious and eagerly await his views thereon before taking the plunge. All the reviews are full of praise. I also need Reg to sort me out with Photoshop again since I seem to have buzzarded it up with Serif's PCMover.
Comments
anonymousKevin ..... Thank you very much for tracking down the Alvis TA14. Armed with the model details I 'google-imaged' and am absolutely sure you are right.
Bungus ..... Talking about Scunthorpe United ....... About 50 years ago, the chap who owned our paper-shop was a retired professional footballer who played for them. Now there's a rivetingly interesting bit of information for you !
You are quite correct - the word should be 'barbecue'. But I never remember them at all in my youth, however spelt. Auberon Waugh once pointed out that we used to eat inside and go outside to the lavatory. Now we have the loo inside and eat outside. So much for hygiene.
I'm afraid I can't claim the manufacture of the anti-starling feeders. I bought both in a Charity Shop. IE7 is Internet Explorer. If you've never heard of that, and don't use Firefox, what on earth browser do you use?
The activity you describe as 'piking' was know in Police circles as 'chiking'. In my experience 'clarty' wouldn't be used to describe mutton fat, but scones can be 'clarty' and I quite like them like that.
Jill ..... I think the blonde presenter who isn't Sue Barker may be Gabby Logan (she started off well in Strictly Come Dancing and was unlucky to be knocked out).
We all seem in agreement about barbecques (back it each way, I say). At least our age group. Like you (and Bungus) our meat eating has reduced quite sharply. Often one normal sized portion is enough for us to share. Worries about meat-production, and quantity, often persuade Y to go for vegetarian options. And we have a friend who regularly orders a child's portion, or two starters and no main course.
I've no idea how you have managed to put a comment about the Buzzard on this post because I hadn't yet published it. As most of it was done I used the 'save a draft' button and that's how it shows up on my 'dashboard'.
Quotation time ......
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
7 comments:
Lucky you with the young buzzard. I'm not very good at recognising hawks, etc, would have had to have looked that one up. What great yellow legs he has! Have you seen buzzards in the locality? Last time I saw one was in Dorset, some years back, they make an odd noise, sort of like a 'mew'.
Just catching up on the week-end blog having spent Saturday seeing Dr. Who as Hamlet (very good!), I have to take issue with the concept of 'fish eating vegetarian' Bungus - since when was a fish a vegetable?
I looked on your blog and there was the picture of the buzzard and you had got as far as the bit about 'inferior hawk'. There was no quote, and I guessed you hadn't finished, but there was the bit saying 'comments' so I clicked that and commented!
On my old mobile I could take photos and managed to send them to other phones, but not to computer. I don't think they were anything like the quality of David's, though hard to tell on the phone.
We often have the fish option, especially on ships, but then we wonder about pollution in the sea, etc.etc. but unless you grow your own veg, keep chickens, etc, you can't really be sure of anything nowadays. And anyway there is always air pollution....
I would like to have seen Dr.Who as Hamlet, have been reading various reviews. It sounds an interesting production.
At our Golden Wedding do we had three people put themselves down as 'fish-eating vegetarians'. - it is a phrase I've heard before. I think it is more about fish not being meat, not that fish are vegetables!
Rob (yesterday):
Not that it matters but Serif is a Nottm company who have excellent cut-price offers on computer programmes and gadgets (the latter usually under their other name Gizoo).
On balance, in spite of RG’s recent understandably tetchy comments, I have found them well worth knowing about and never expensive (except, sometimes, in terms of time and temper!)
I don’t know what Firefox does either, and to confuse folk like you and me by using ‘IE7’ instead of ‘Internet Explorer’ seems simply perverse. When serving in the RE, it irritated me intensely that I could never find out what the initials ‘QL’ meant even though I could drive one.
Most of us seem to be broadly agreed about ‘cack-handed’.
I like the kleptomaniac bit.
I used to be convinced I was an agnostic but now I’m not so sure.
Surely road racing has always been a team affair? Look at the Tour.
And now a Mansfield girl has won gold in the pool.
Sunday blog:
What a jolly hotels picture. You did well to spot its potential.
I don’t remember pointing out that Saturday wasn’t Sunday. And fancy my very first infants’ school teacher being the PM. Oh no, that was Miss Bramwell.
Great Buzzard. I want one. And how considerate of it to participate so willingly and patiently in the photo shoot. The Wren should learn from that.
Isn’t ‘buzzard’ sometimes used to mean ‘codger’?
The phone photos are quite amazing. Pity they weren’t around when I first wanted a pocket camera.
But now I just want my mobile phone to enable texting.
”Interesting things to do, like buying a Nikon 70-300 VR lens”? Well, it takes all sorts!
Still talking about Scunthorpe United ....... I once had a neighbour (Monty Wright) who became a newsagent and who had been on the books of Wolves and another big league club as well as playing for Chesterfield, Chesterfield Old Boys, Brunts Old Boys and QEGS Old Boys. And another neighbour (Stuart ‘Charlie’ Buchan) who had been with him at Wolves (under Major Buckley) and whose then father-in-law ran the garage and all-night transport café near the White Post.
And, yes, the blonde sports presenter is Gabby Logan, maiden name Gabby Yorath, former gymnast and daughter of the Welsh international footballer who succeeded Norman ‘Bite yer Legs’ Hunter as left half of Leeds Utd.
And you think lenses are interesting?
Yes, scones can be ‘clarty’ although I prefer them not to be. I used ‘mutton fat’ as an example because it is at the extreme end, the awful ultimate in ‘clartiness’.
No, I like barbecues in spite of the risk of the risk of food poisoning (but I do have a good look at sausage, chicken, etc). When we caravanned, I barbecued every meal except when we ‘ate out’ which is a confusing term in this context.
Respect to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry but Mies said much the same thing rather more succinctly.
Jill:
So Buzzards mew while Little Grebes whinney, like a distant horse.
Helen:
I am sure that you, like other readers, do not have a real problem with the term 'fish eating vegetarian' as descriptive shorthand. Fish, generally, are not so intensively reared and cruelly treated as the beasts which should be of the fields.
In theory, Sandra has no problem with the concept of eating game (which she perceives as having led something of a free and natural life) but does not indulge, as she cannot now accept the taste of any animal flesh.
It has just struck me that the last girl to win an Olympic gold medal for swimming, some 50 years ago, was Anita Lonsburgh (backstroke) who was also from Mansfield.
The barbecue, barbeque, barbequeue interchange caused me to recall the following conversation overheard in the Durham Ox:
“Where d’ya go?”
“For some chips”
“Where from?”
“The Baccaruda.”
“It’s Barracuda.”
“I know, but I can’t say ‘Barracuda’.”
Didn't realise that Anita Lonsburgh was from Mansfield.
Could the other blonde presenter be Charon Davies?
When was Miss Bramwell Prime Minister? I must have missed that one. And wasn't it an ordinary buzzard instead of a Great one?
Lenses are not interesting only the results that they produce and quite often not even then. Unless in the hands of a skilled operator such as RG, Reg and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
I, too, am wary of barber queues and usually book an appointment. Even then I still have to wait but I get free beer.
Congratulations to Rebecca Adlington on the gold medal. Now she is to have a swimming pool named after her. It's been a good few days for Mansfield after the Stags failed to lose on Saturday. According to Wikipedia:
Anita Lonsbrough MBE (born 10 August 1941 in Huddersfield) is a former swimmer from Great Britain who won a Gold Medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics.
Lonsbrough was a Treasurer's Office clerk employed at the Huddersfield Town Hall. She won her first Gold Medal for swimming in the 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff. Five world records and seven gold medals followed until her retirement in 1964. At one time she held the Olympic Gold Medal, Empire and European medals at the same time.
She currently is a sports commentator and journalist for The Daily Telegraph, and lives with her husband, former Olympic cyclist Hugh Porter, in Wolverhampton. She works under the name Anita Lonsbrough-Porter.
Thank you, Bungus, for the information about Serif of Nottingham. Do they have an employee by the name of Rhobin Hood?
I use Internet Explorer to surf t'internet but have never heard it referred to as IE7. Surely, RG, you are not into dressing-up simplicity with mystifying terms to exclude people? I'd be more than surprised if you were - I've never known you to do it and I regard you as one of the best communicators I have ever come across. Now you've got to explain a VR lens to the uninitiated!
I understand piking to be dogging. Stan Collymore, ex striker of Crystal Palace, Southend, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Ulrika Jonsson was arrested for doing it. See Wikipedia for more info
When I was doing my degree, two of my 'fellow' students (one was a woman) claimed to be vegetarians. One of them ate chicken and fish; the other ate dairy products. The latter once told me that, on a railway station in India, he went into the vegetarian restaurant and asked for an omelette. "Sorry, sir", was the reply, "this is a vegetarian restaurant."
Rob
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