Bird Ringing Demonstration

Because my good friend Sybil came out and helped ring our baby swallows, I have been made aware of what the British Trust for Ornithology or BTO does to track birds in the UK and Europe.

I found out there was a bird ringing demonstration at a local wildlife reserve.  It was a dry and bright Saturday morning and I went along with my camera and binoculars.

I was familiar with the basics of putting rings on birds.

Set up mist nets where you think birds will be

Mist net

Catch birds in a mist net and put the birds in a clean, cotton bag.  One bird per bag please

Coal Tit with next bird in a bag

Get blackbirds out of the mist net immediately as they can get their tongues caught in the nets and be double tangled.

Male Blackbird getting measured

2. Weigh them and measure wings. Try to determine sex and age.

Reed Warbler getting wings measured

3. Write all the information down

Male Chaffinch getting inspected

4. Put a numbered ring on the bird's leg and add that number to the information

Robin being documented

5. Let the bird go

I was there for over an hour watching them pluck birds from the nets, talking to other people and inspecting the area.  I had a good time.  The staff and volunteers at the reserve are charming.  You know what?  They know their birds too.

The club that rings birds was ringing the birds was separate from the reserve itself.  I have tried to convince them that they should come out to our place and ring the visitors to my feeders.  Turns out they are really busy and have plenty of gardens available.  My little birds are competing with the Bass Rock gannets and the puffins at Ailsa Craig.

Grandsons are perfect!

Grandmotherly pride has been restricted to social media for almost the last two years.  Highlights have seeped onto the blog when my exuberance overflows.  Today it bubbles over again.

Lennox who lives in Chicago is going to be two next month.  He will be two freaking years old on the 10th of March!  I sure wish I could be there to celebrate with him.

He has grown to be just exactly what I expected, extremely bright, gifted with just a dash of precociousness.  He is such a good-natured little guy and he charms all he meets.  He loves to sing and bend his family to his will.

Big help with cooking!

Lennox also loves to cook.  It is adorable to watch him sprinkle imaginary spices into what he is creating.

Jack, the Scottish grandchild follows with his second birthday in April.

Look at this cherub!  Those curls have wrapped right around my heart.

He is also quite advanced for his tender age.  Look, if you think I am going to be even slightly restrained when it comes to my grandchildren, guess again.

Jack has the most wonderful sense of fun and a tiny flair for drama has been poking through.  He is also showing signs of being a tidy and organised little child.

I am so very very happy that my life includes these two beautiful children.

The thing I discovered when I became a mother myself is how ferociously you love your child.  I discovered when the second child came along that love expands to fill the need.  You don't love your first child less because a second one has showed up, your ability to love grows to encompass the new child.  The genius thing is that it works over and over again.  I have yet to run out!

This is brilliant because it is going to need to grow again!

I am making this baby quilt for the grandchild that is expected to arrive in June!  Each child has had a quilt from Nana.   Lennox's mother selected the colours with me for this project.  I have finished the top and am now at the very long and involved process of hand quilting it all together.

There are loads of squares left over from this quilt and the two that I made before.  It was suggested that I make a Nana's quilt out of these.  That's a brilliant idea!  I think I'll be making up the blocks soon!  Here's the big question though. . . . when I do stop?  If I complete it and then "surprise" another is on the way. . . this child's quilt will not be in the Nana quilt.  I'll worry about that later.  I have sewing to do.

The Record Collector

The Man of The Place is a committed vinyl junkie.  He has a large and diverse record collection that is the work of a lifetime.

It was obvious a few years ago that the shelves that he built in 1992 were no longer enough.  We had small stacks of records on the floor leaning against the shelves as there was no more room.

There used to be room, but over the years, that shelf space shrank.  To prevent records from being squished, an annex to the shelves was made.

As you can see, to the left there was a bit of space for the shelves to stretch out.

Now the shelf annex is done and the records are off the floor.  Look!  There's space!

This means that there doesn't have to be a lull in the acquisition of more records.  Not that there ever was.

Yesterday we found ourselves in Stirling dropping Polly off to have her knee fixed.  After saying goodbye to our dog we trundled to the centre of town and Europa Music.

The front of the store looks like every music store that I've been to before. In addition to CDs there are Beatles mugs, band t-shirts, bongs, etc.  The USP that draws my husband is the back room.

This back room is not the place to go if you are hunting for a specific album.  It is a place to flick through stacks and stacks of cool but unsorted records to find one that you don't have and have always wanted.

Here are a few action shots.

The 45s under one of the tables - Notice there is somebody's old 45s carrying case that was exclusively for Status Quo singles.

Over in the back is the World Music...stretch!

He has a recurring dream in which he is in a record store just like this.  A bit of a jumble and there are boxes of records that are undiscovered gems.

In this dream,  The Man of the Place gets a dusty box down and discovers a single with a picture sleeve.  It is REM doing a cover version of The Crusher by The Cramps.  At this point he is woken and the thrill of discovery swiftly changes to sadness.  It was all a dream and REM never did a cover of The Crusher. 

I asked if he liked having somebody in there with him.  This way he could have somebody with him when he finds a brilliant album "Look at this!  I used to have it, but the first wife kept it during the divorce." or if he preferred to be by himself.  

He thanked me for my sensitivity but this flipping through records activity is really best done alone.  

I took the three that had already been selected up through to the front of the shop.  I told the staff that these were for the vinyl junkie in the back room and that if or when he surfaced, I wouldn't be far away having my lunch.  It felt like record collector day care.