Sunday's spotlight - Mad dogs and Englishmen

By guest blogger Pete.

I'm pretty sure that it was Noel Coward - if it's not him then I'm equally sure someone will let me know who it was - who wrote the song which contained the line; "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun".  Well, with the weather we're currently getting, to go out in the midday sun would mean a quick optimistic  search for any sun and a good likelihood of catching pneumonia rather than sun stroke.  However, I must be a certified mad Englishman and Pam's stability must be equally questionable because we've decided to go for a five day break to Morecambe.

Photo by Bay Photographic 

Now Morecambe is a seaside resort on the Lancashire coast but with our weather neither of us expect to spend a few balmy days sitting in deck chairs enjoying that aforementioned yellow object that, sometimes, appears in the sky.  Morecambe is one of those places which, at low tide, has an endless beach stretching out to the barely discernible sea.  It's not advisable, though, to set off in search of that "barely discernible sea" because when the tide does decide to come in it does so and a remarkable speed.  In the past that speed has caught some tourists and winkle pickers (or whatever it is that they search for on the wet sands) by complete surprise and necessitated in a not always successful speedy rescue response for the coastguards.  I think we might venture for, at least, one windy walk along the prom - sufficient for me to be the true "mad" Englishman.  Sometimes I think Pam is more suspect with her completely mystifying love of walking in a gale force wind.  I mustn't say more because she will read this later on.  I'll just add that it wouldn't surprise me too much if we had more than one gale time walk along the prom!
 

Photo by Gidzy 

We're not driving to Morecambe for this break.  Instead we are going on a coach trip.  Included in the visit is a day trip to the lake district (one of England's most attractive beauty spots).  We have two days at leisure in Morecambe so I think Pam and I will spend at least one of them on a train visit to nearby Lancaster.  This is, I'm told, an attractive town complete with castle and other beautiful buildings.  Neither Pam nor I have been to either Morcambe or Lancaster before so when I get back I'll let you know what the two places we visited were like ------------------------------------ in midwinter.

 

 Photo by Dave Bleasdale 

So keep looking at this blog and you may see a modern version of "A Winter's Tale".  Now, who wrote that?  Don't think it was Noel Coward !!!!!!

National Nest Box week

It's National Nest Box week this week!  (In England - not the US, but should be worldwide). What a nice idea!  And perfect to coincide with Valentine's day.......little love birds building their nests...

Bluebirds

I should go and count how many we have....We have a lot.  So I thought I'd dig out some photos to show you them - all hand painted by our visitors.

Whenever someone comes to stay with us, we ask them to paint a birdhouse and then put it up in the garden.  When we walk by it, it's a lovely reminder of that person.

And here are some silver ones that I've made over the years:

And here are some in use by the birdies.

Well - the great blue heron is merely using it as a perch!

 

A little blue bird wanting to stretch his wings

At peace - more bluebirds

So get out there this National Nest Box week - wherever you live - and build or buy a nesting box.  It will bring you so much joy!  And now is the perfect time to get them up in place.  There is information on building them and positioning them on the National Nest Box website. 

The best part is that you can get little cameras to go inside so you can watch what happens, and listen to all the little chirps.  Give it a try, you'll love it!

Egg-xactly right - Friday's fascinations, facts and folklore

What is the right number of eggs to lay?

Photo by Woodlywonderworks

Some birds are termed determinate egg layers because they lay only a certain number of eggs and no more.  The crow, budgie, tricolored blackbird and many shorebirds are examples of determinate egg layers.  If an egg is destroyed, the parent(s) will simply tend to whatever remains.  In experiments, it is also seen that these birds do not curtail egg laying if eggs are added to the nest.

Other birds are termed indeterminate egg layers.  Three types of indeterminate egg layers are seen:

• removal indeterminacy - after  laying a clutch of eggs, if one is stolen/destroyed/removed, the female will lay another in its place.  Examples are goldeneye ducks, California quail, cockatiels, coots and of course - fowl like chicken! In one experimental case where an egg was removed every day from a Northern Flicker's nest, the female flicker laid 71 eggs in 73 days!
• addition indeterminacy, - if eggs are added to the nest in experiments, the birds layer fewer eggs than normal
• removal and addition indeterminacy - birds respond to egg removal by laying more, and respond to egg addition by layer fewer. 

Other factors obviously come into play too - for example, light levels, temperature, food supply, longevity of species, etc, etc.
.

 Photo by Michelle Eve

Please don't try any experiments at home! It is illegal to remove bird's eggs from nests (Migratory Bird Treaty Act 1918).

Caption Competition! - Enter now

Yes, the caption competition is back!

Here's the photo:


All you have to do is write a caption for the photo.

I'll run the competition for 2 weeks (ends 25th) - so spread the word and let's see how many people enter. You can enter on the blog by writing your caption in the comments section or enter on Facebook by leaving a comment. I'll summarize all the entries on Facebook as we go along and then show them here on the 25th. You can enter as many captions as you like.

The prize is your own little silver birdie - like the ones shown here - but that will sit by your computer (a desk buddy) - that way both boys and girls will hopefully want to win!

If you missed the last caption competitions with Quentin Quail - check out the photos on the tab at the top and you may be inspired. And if you saw the competitions last time and didn't enter - I hope you'll give it a try this time.

Good luck!

I look forward to reading your captions!

Experimenting with Prometheus Bronze Clay

I've just tried out a new bronze clay that doesn't require activated carbon for firing. It's made in France and called Prometheus Bronze Clay.


I decided to test it by making a simple sculpted pair of cat earrings. Meet Claude and Claudia (get it?..Clawed??)

I liked working with it in it's clay stage a lot. It had a nice feel to it, parts attached very easily with just a little water, smoothed and sanded nicely..... It reminded me of Original PMC in it's feel.

For firing, you can fire it wrapped in paper towels and kiln blanket or fire it open. For my first experiment, I tried it wrapped. Each piece was first wrapped in half a paper towel, then both were rolled together in a kiln blanket. They were fired for 30 minutes at 700 degrees C /1292 degrees F. It was straight forward.


After firing, I took them out and quenched them in cold water. At this stage, black oxidised flakes came off. On one of them, a large chunk came off the front, causing a big indentation. Both seemed fully scintered.

The result was two very pink colored cats. I polished them and tumbled them.

My main comment re. the fired pieces was that the bronze looks mottled in color. There is definitely a rosy tinge to the bronze, but it seems a little patchy in the pieces. A more golden color shows through in some areas as you can see in the photos.


Anyhow - I assembled the cats, as I wanted to figure out how to do the four legs! The legs now ring very gently against the body - making them sound like quiet little bells!

Anyone else get this mottled rose and golden bronze in the same piece? What have your experiences been trying out this new clay? I'd love to hear. I'm going to try and open firing next and see how that compares.

Family Footprints bracelet

The second part of my recent commission (see yesterday's post) for a wife's 50th birthday present was to make a bracelet that was inspired by my animal tracks bracelet.


Instead of using animal tracks, the husband asked that I put human footprints on the bracelet in three different sizes. The largest to represent the eldest boy and include the letter "T' for his initial, the next size down for his daughter with a letter "K" and then two more smaller pairs the same size to represent the twin boys and the initials "D" and "M". Then we needed a square for the dog's footprints too!


I then added two more squares, one with her birthday date on, and then the second with the words "Gold Band" on - which is a family joke :-D It's been intriguing me while I make it actually..."gold band"????? ....one of those mysteries that probably won't be solved....


I asked if the husband wanted his own footprints on it too - but he said no, as "she did all the hard work"! Anyhow - I think it's a lovely family piece. I think he did a great job deciding what to put on it and I hope she loves it.

Juggling family life - Necklace and earrings comission

I've just finished 2 pieces in a commission for a 50th birthday present. Someone from England whom I met here recently, asked me to make two pieces for his wife. The first was based on my juggler piece and I'll show the other piece tomorrow.

He and his wife have 4 kids - the oldest is a son, then a daughter, then twin boys. So he decided he wanted the balls the juggler was juggling to represent his kids!


The blue ball is his eldest son, the pink is his daughter and the green balls are the twins! He chose to have the "biggest handfuls" as the green balls - as that was definitely the twins!

Isn't it a great idea.....Tomorrow I'll show you his other family piece.

Sunday's spotlight - Frosty has returned

By guest blogger Pete.

Everyone here was hoping that the cold, frosty and snow bound weather that we had been experiencing over Christmas and the New Year was over. Yet here we are in February and, although not, generally, as cold as it has been, we are still getting some snow and very heavy frosts.
This looks like a fun slide:

Photo by Joe Shablotnik

As a boy heavy frosts were much more welcome then than they are now to an old crinkly. The playground at our school was on a slope and we lads soon had a number of slides going on those frosty days. Most of us wore metal protectors on our shoes - very common in the days soon after the war because the idea was that they would make our shoes last much longer. I do know that when we marched down the school corridor to our classes it sounded like the St Valentine's Day Massacre was taking place. Those metal protectors, however, were good for polishing slides. Those slides were like glass and a continuous stream of lads sliding along them soon made them into a skating rinks.


No teachers ever told us that such slides were dangerous and, therefore, that we should neither make them nor enjoy them. The present day Granny State with its "Health and Safety" regulations wasn't even thought about then. The only possible "hurt" involved with these slides was to a boy's pride if he couldn't remain upright when sliding.

I was buying some more de-icer products the other day when I came across a product called "The Night Before". For anyone like me who can't use their garage or don't have a garage then this is a very useful product indeed. You apply it on the evening when frost is expected and then the next morning you don't get frost bite on your digits trying to clear ice from the screen and windows. Once, when living in Warminster, I can remember the screen and windows being iced up both outside and also inside the car. This was not in a morning but on a rather late evening when returning from some long forgotten excursion. After much scrapping I managed to get a "port hole" of clearness in the windscreen and with that vision crept the 1/2 mile or so back to our home.

Photo by Froskeland

I finished the latest Lincoln Cathedral painting this week. A scanned photo of it is shown below. I was somewhat surprised by the comparatively short time this masterpiece took me. When you look at it you may not be as surprised as I was!! The next painting is going to be a smaller one; that means, probably, that it will take me to Easter before I get in finished.


Keep on with the de-icer. They do say that Spring's not too far away.

Lijit - a blog search box that gives feedback!

While most people have a search box for their blogs, so people can look up previous topics etc, I just came across Lijit and have added that in my sidebar of this blog.

Here's what it looks like:


It seems to perform all the usual search functions for the searcher that other search boxes do, but the advantage is that it provides valuable information back to you, the blogger, on what people have searched for and found - but also what keywords they searched for and didn't find any links/results.

Both are useful when you come to write future blog posts, as maybe you can choose to address some of topics that people searched for and didn't find links to, and also you can keep talking about the most searched about topics!
Sample search: 4 pages of results


I only put it on my blog last night but already I can see that my top referring search location is Delhi! Lijit sends you a weekly email showing your stats which is great - or else you can log into the website www.lijit.com and enter your name and password and all search information shows up for you.

In addition to using this to search your blog, you can also set it up to search your social networks too - including linkedin, twitter, Flickr,Digg, Reddit....and also include other people's blogs as well.

It's free, easy to set up, and I think it's going to be useful feedback - and different from what you get from google analytics. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Do birds taste good? - Friday's fascinations, facts, and folklore.

No, I'm not proposing that we at Birdland have had a change of heart and now want to eat all the birds here - rather I'm talking about the taste buds that birds have!

Photo by idahoptv

Cats have around 500 taste buds on their tongue, dogs 2,000, humans and pigs 15,000 and birds only a few dozen to a few hundred.

Photo by Correa Carvalho

Sometimes this is helpful because birds can eat distasteful fruits and nuts that rodents are repelled by. It is thought that some plants have evolved a bad taste in order to be dispersed by birds rather than mammals. While rodents tend to chew seeds and fruit, birds often swallow them whole, maikng them much more likely to germinate later.

Photo of a woodpecker's tongue - 3 times the length of his bill.

Photo courtesy of Hilton Pond

Yet, if you watch Harold my parrot - he definitely has favorite foods - and at different times of the day. He loves fresh squash seeds and bananas at breakfast time, then cashews for cocktail hour. For cashews, he'll turn in a circle up to 5 times or climb all over his cage in anticipation and then relishes every little bit...not dropping the slightest crumb. Other food he doesn't care if he drops - having one little taste then can't be bothered!

So while they may have few taste buds, it doesn't mean they don't relish certain tastes/textures...


This photo above of me and a mockingbird was taken in the Galapagos Islands a few years ago. The mockingbird is on my shoulder not because it thinks I'm wonderful :-( but because I am holding a water bottle. While there is plenty of salt water on/around the island, there is very little fresh water. The birds seem to have learned that it is "work" for the body to desalinate the salt/sea water and therefore, they try and get fresh water from the tourists. If you accidentally drop your water bottle on the ground there, you will have a flock of birds around it in seconds, hoping to get a little drop of fresh water! This guy on my shoulder was hoping I would open my bottle and pour some out for him.

Do you notice any favorite tastes in the birds around you?

Rupert the bird

You met Humphrey and Trisha on Monday.....well they've been busy (they are love birds!) and here is their son Rupert!

He too hangs around quite a bit....


but while that might sound easy, Rupert says he gets quite tired and has to lie down periodically:


Poor little birdie.....out all day, no little nest to go back to, so he just has to take the weight off his feet sometimes!

How to add speech bubbles to photos

If you regularly read my blog, you may have seen my photo on Monday of the love birds Humphrey and Trisha, with their little speech bubbles:

There are a variety of web applications that are free and quick and easy and give some flexibility for adding little quotes....but the one I like best is called SuperLame Word balloon engine.

Basically you pull up your photo on their website and then get a few choices to play with:

• You can use bold or regular font
• You can choose the shape of the bubble so it's like a cloud, a square, a rounded square, a "burst" or an oval
• You can choose to outline/border the bubble
• You can drag it to position it wherever you want it and whatever size you want it
• You can drag where you want the "tail" of the bubble. The shape of the tail - bubbles or point depends on the shape of your bubble

The comic balloon isn't limited to the size of your photo either - it can go beyond the borders of the photo and then the application defines new borders.


It's all very easy - takes less than a minute. You then save the photo and use it as you wish!

If you want, you can then print your photo, make stickers, put it on a tee shirt....

They also have a facebook app so you can add comments to your friend's facebook photos.

So give a try : http://www.superlame.com - and show us what you do! It's a fun, free, easy, funny app!

Guess the day....

I'm not around today.....can you guess why if I give you a couple of clues?:

So what have you learnt about me then from the clues?????? Did you get them all?

Love Birds - Humphrey and Trisha

Thought you'd like to meet my two new birdie friends - Humphrey and Trisha.


They are very much in love as you can tell....

So you know they will be looking forward to Valentine's Day......They are so much in love that you frequently hear them calling each other "my darling" and "my love"...forgoing "Humphrey" and "Trisha". They are just two darlings....

But surely, now and again they must get a little annoyed with each other and fall out and....maybe that's when the "Humphrey" and "Trisha" can be heard:


But I guess they always like to hang out together, regardless....

OK. I confess. These two little birdies are named after some friends of ours! 5 years ago when we were travelling to the Galapagos Island, we met two British couples on the boat. One couple were called Humphrey and Trisha! They are quintessentially British! It's just wonderful......and that's right, Humphrey always refers to Trisha as " darling" or "my love"!!!

We had a wonderful time with them while travelling and I sort of wondered whether these terms of affection would rub off on John...but no! However Humphrey generously extended the terms to include me too - and I did the same for him!!

And we still do! We meet up once a year with the darlings when we go back to England and catch up on what we've all been doing and where we've been travelling!!

Here's to good friends!

Humphrey and Trisha