The title will make sense at the end.....
I've mentioned once or twice (!) how strange this year has been. A year of fluctuating fortunes, a strange mixture of appreciating what I have and strangely wanting more. Basically, even by Green Sand's slightly fey, slightly eccentric standards, its been a wee bit odd.
So, after a very sporadic, bitty few weeks I made a concerted effort to have a 'proper' day out birding. Taking photographs of bees and suchlike could only scratch my outdoor...
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The sheer oddity which is 2021 has continued apace over the past few weeks. The endless days of sunshine actually saw me going out less, weekends were dominated by ‘Dad duties’, and despite Covid restrictions being more or less abandoned I found myself staying closer and closer to home, for convenience sake.
Elder daughter has secured part time work, and being a dutiful Dad, I’ve been taking her there, rather than have her use public transport. It allows me to catch up and spend quality...
At 86 I am accelerating each day, learning about all manner of things from the bizarre to the mundane. This has been brought about by the amazing facilities online from Wikipedia to google and beyond. There is no excuse for ignorance any more, and curiosity is catching! Others may agree that the more is discovered or unearthed, the more aware one becomes of the depths of ignorance or lack of knowledge and this applies strongly to the bird world. There are so many unanswered...
You may have picked up from some of my previous posts that I'm not a massive fan of change. I have my routines, and I have my set places, my tried and tested sites to go birding. New things (such as global pandemics and being locked down, for example) make me feel uncomfortable, and it takes a while before either I try somethign new, or feel comfortable enough doing it that it stops being 'new.' All this is mostly subconscious, incidentally, in case I've painted a picture of a badly-...
I hope I'm posting this in the right category...
Anyhow, recently I hung a bird house that I built myself. As it wasn't very well made, I didn't really think anything would live in it, and figured it would just be for decoration. However, one day I peeked inside of it and saw sticks piled up in there! There was no door I could open to see if there were eggs, and if there was I probably wouldn't have opened it as to not disrupt the bird's home, but I kept an eye on it.
One day, there was...
My birding day: Great Blue Heron in Flight, McKenzie Marsh Boardwalk
https://www.livinginaurora.com/great-blue-heron-in-flight-mckenzie-marsh-boardwalk/
The glow from my A- Team adventure (this makes sense if you read my previous post, but basically a plan almost came together) lasted a good few days. I've found that when I come home after a good or long day out I have an adjustment period. Getting used to people, and being indoors rather than being alone in a muddy field somewhere. What I've also found is that the glow can get extended by thinking of what to say in this blog, looking forward to updating Green Sand's 2021 year ist, Bubo...
The end of lockdown has had me acting like a kid in a sweety shop. So many birds to see, so many birding trips, so many places to visit. Of course, the reality is somewhat different, and part of me is still slightly baffled that work, Dad duties, and ‘life’ hasn’t paused to allow me to embark on this sweety- shop fiesta. Thus I find myself weeks after my last blog post with quite a lot to cram in. In true Green Sand fashion, naturally, my plan didn’t quite come together.
I’ve mentioned...
What is the diff between the hawke 8x42 ED x and the 8x42 APO apart from price i have the sapphire 8x42 and looking to get a new set any advice thanks.
Some of you may have picked up b now that while I always have the best intentions to be organised,
the reality is often very different. I’ve mentioned how, with the promise of lockdown easing, I had
been making tentative plans for what to do when the great day came upon us. Over the past few weeks,
these went from dreams through various stages to actual plans, with a schedule and a timeframe.
Birdtrack data has been scoured, even, to give you and idea of the depth of planning.
Thus it came...
The village where I grew up is no longer, by any reasonable measure, a village. The transformation of derelict industrial and former agricultural land into massive, identikit housing estates. My house, and the streets I played in, are still there, but the village of Halfway in South Lanarkshire is no longer recognisable. Leaving aside the ecological and human geography aspect of urbanisation, there's something poignant about going back. Sure, the back roads (as we call them) are the...
I've realised that my blog titles have started to resemble the episode names from the MacGyver reboot....
Quiet couple of weeks, both in the garden and in my wanderings. 'Making do' is now such an automatic thing that I don't give it a second thought, really, unless I'm in a reflective mood. Last Saturday was a 'dropping daughter off at work day' and for once she had a shift that suited me. Having dropped sleepy teen off, I nipped into Hogganfield Loch for a wander- on basis of "well...
It has really been an explosive year for amphibian migration. Some of the things I've seen this year I still can't believe took place before my eyes.
It all started with a local visit to my trusted pond in the start of February. Despite it being so early in the year for this to happen, I still encountered three european common frogs, as well as two smooth newts. Next came the incredibly low temperatures for the region, which saw everything head back into the ponds. For a long time even...
I've mentioned before that Scotland's council areas bear little relation to logic. Or geography, for that matter. The current guidance is to stray no more than 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority to begin your outdoors exercise. This opens vast swathes of land miles away from home, while closing off places that are much, much closer.
20- odd years ago, I studied at Lancaster University for a year doing an MA. Sadly, I missed the chance to go birding, as my time was spent...
Hi my name is Tom i am from London ,i have only today joined your forum
i live currently in amsterdam netherlands,.... i have a curious question of which maybe some one could help me on,,, that is a long time ago in the late 1980s i visited some friends in the north of germany , and i was suprised to find that a species of sparrow of which i found so interesting were just the same as our common house sparrow only difference being that they had a spiked form of feather which protruded from...
After the excitement of Mrs Green Sand's big number birthday, I fell back into the routine of working long hours, and watching the feeders. I'm of an age where 3am toilet breaks are a ting, and thankfully the song thrush can reliably wake me up before my bladder does. I'm definitely trying to find the positives there....
Anyway, another positive of putting in long hours is the build up of flexi credit, and the tantalising promise of an easing out of lockdown in the near future so I can...
A quieter week this week, no midweek birding wanders, but a lot of gazing out the window at the feeders. I call this a productive use of my time, whether my boss agrees or not. The plus side is that the local housesparrows have re- discovered the garden feeders. While they're not the most melodious of birds, I associate their cheeping with my childhood of having 10-15 in my garden at one time. A simpler time.
Last Saturday's dalliance with Swedish furniture was a (relative) success...
I was planning to include last week and this week in one post, but it turns out I have too much to say!! Part 2 will follow tomorrow- ish.
So, Mrs GS was due to enjoy a 'big number' birthday last Sunday- she refuses to call it a 'big' number and prefers 'significant' as an adjective. However you wish to describe 50.....
My idea to get up at 7am on Saturday instead became a lazy morning watching my garden feeders. Plans, eh?
Sunday was written in as a family day, as it should be...
Avid readers of my ramblings will recall that I'm blessed with three wonderful children and an equally wonderful wife. You may also recall that none of them really share my love of standing still in mud staring at trees. Each week is partially taken up with 'Dad duties' and occasionally they encroach upon the weekend- which was always 'Dad time' when they were younger. Last weekend was one such time, when youngest child needed a lift to his (socially- distanced) tennis match and eldest...
After last week's sulky blow out, I approached the weekend with a sense of optimism and a determination to to actually enjoy being out. The week at work (in my living room) was much better and the garden feeders were far busier than they had been previously. Even the magpies scaring everything away allowed me to appreciate both the plumage and their grace and agility of these chronically under- appreciated birds. Saturday was family duty day, and Sunday dawned with one last Dad- task...
Quiet week, and quieter weekend. Both in terms of birds, and of 'life events.' Garden watching saw the usual suspects, with the addition of long- tail tit onto the garden list for the year. Meanwhile, my friends- both within 2 miles of my house, in different directions- are fed up with the number of redpoll they're getting in the garden. If anyone can explain this, please let me know.
As always when you're working and reduced to staring at a bird feeder, you end up desperate for the...
I was out this morning walking around the Old Telegraph Station in Alice Springs and was watching a pair of Galahs in in a Red River Gum. The female was standing in the fork of the tree rubbing the side of her face on the trunk of the tree. This went on for some minutes. What was also interesting was that this part of the tree seemed to be a different colour as if was a frequent activity. This was happening about two meters from the nest hole they had in the tree.
I would be interested in...
his newly described species is listed as Critically Endangered because there are no known populations and the last record is from 1971; consequently if it does remain extant it is assumed that any population must be tiny. The species was collected on the Llano de Ovejas, a small plateau at 2,400-2,800 m. This species has been discovered solely based on three speciemens in musea. It had been collected last in 1971, the two other speciemens are undated. In fact, in conservation terms there is...
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