The Birds

Watery Wednesday

On a cold winter day, the river might look  deceitfully peaceful.

Beware though… If you get close to the water, and start fiddling with the zipper on your bag, the hungry ducks are expecting something a lot more appetizing than a camera to appear!

Help… I’d better get away from here before I find myself in a scenario resembling The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock… Some of the ducks actually flew up at me; and at the same time doves were beginning to move in from above… I fled!

Going For A Swim On A Foggy Morning

I had another Watery Wednesday post planned from my Picture Book blog today, but for some reason I’m having trouble posting that one. So I thought I’d put in another watery picture here and see if that helps me figure out where the problem is.

Here, There, Somewhere…

Sorry, I’ve had rather a busy week with all sorts of this and that, “flying about” and not able to spend as much time as usual in Blogland. Hoping to to catch up soon…

These birds and nests are found in a staircase at the service center where my dad lives now.

Uno’s Animals: Birds

Uno was 53 years old when he started making wooden sculptures. Altogether he made about 250 of them, big and small. He never sold any of his them. He gave some away, but most of them he kept in a private museum in a barn on his farm. As rumour or his work spread, he got more and more visitors. A few years after he died, the family offered the local folklore society to take over the collection, and a new museum was built next to the village hall. Some of the sculptures have also been exhibited in Stockholm and other cities in Sweden, and even overseas in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

Time And Time Again

On Tuesday afternoon I was told that dad would be moved on Thursday from the hospital to the nursing home; but they would phone me about the exact time. On Thursday by 2 pm I had heard nothing, so I called the hospital ward – and was told that no, it had been postponed until Friday. So today again I waited for that phone call; again I heard nothing, and when I called I was told that no, not today, but on Monday! (Remains to be seen what they say then.)

Since I had not been to see dad myself since Tuesday – partly because I kept thinking each day that I had better save my own energy for “tomorrow”! – I went up to the hospital again late this afternoon. He was more “awake” than he was last time, but not really very much more “aware”.

His sense of time and space has been out of order since before; but visiting him at the hospital now it strikes me even more forcefully how dependent we really are on Time for our sense of orientation in this world…

Every time I opened my mouth a time-related word seemed to popping out, and at the same time I realized that this probably conveyed very little to him now…

When I first came in, he said he was surprised to see me in the middle of the night. (It was 5.30 pm and the sun shining from a blue sky outside the window.) So automatically I tried to correct… Then I tried to get a grip of whether he remembered that I had been to visit earlier this week – or anything else that had happened earlier in the week (he didn’t). And then there was the task of trying to explain that my brother will be coming… next week? … on Monday? … in a few days? … soon? …  And so on… 

Dad in his turn tried to convey to me his own impressions: While I boringly tried to drag him into Reality and explain that he has been spending the last five days in a hospital bed, he tried to tell me that he had been away travelling and meeting relatives and friends and having quite an interesting time, only a couple of days ago! My sense of logic tells me this can only have been happening in his dreams… but to him those dreams seem more real than Reality now…

Thinking about it as I walked home in the warm summer evening… As long as his dreams are pleasant, perhaps we should just try to be glad for him that he is able to spend so much time in that “other world”…

But it is certainly not easy to make Communication “between worlds” work without reference to Time And Space! 

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

---

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

About the photos in this post:

1. Gulls over the river. See more photos from the same occasion in my Thursday post at Soaring Through the World.

2. For more of these glass birds, see today’s post in my Picture Book. They’re hovering over the hospital foyer. I have been thinking for months that I should take photos of them, but usually when I’m at the hospital I don’t have the camera with me + in the daytime the foyer is always a busy place full of people. But on Tuesday after I had been to visit dad, it was after “business hours”… few people around… and I did have the camera with me. So I took the opportunity.

The Gull That Wouldn’t Fly

Very hot today… I really feel most comfortable just lurking in the shadow.

Well, perhaps I should try a little walkabout?

Hmm… That asphalt looks rather hot…

What’s that you’re saying? Use my wings? Are you crazy, I might get too close to the sun…!

I think I’ll just return to my bush!

Wildlife, Birds and Flowers

I got some "complaints" [hi, Ginny ;)] about yesterday's tourist advice. Seems I forgot to mention that we also have wildlife, birds and flowers! One reason for leaving those out was of course that the Tourist-to-be did not ask about them (only about biking, swimming and dancing). Another reason is that wildlife, birds and flowers can be found all over the country; so without narrowing it down a bit it's rather hard to recommend exactly where to go to find them!

But if you're looking for elks, for example, a deep forest would be a much better choice than a seaside resort. Myself, I prefer the zoo. Saves you a lot of trouble and monotonous tree-watching!

I'm afraid I'm not much of a bird-watcher either, and neither is my camera. I think I made some guess about what kind of bird this was when I took the photo, but by now I've forgotten!

Do butterflies in a town park count as wildlife?

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) on Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)

Chamerion angustifolium grows wild all over the country in the summer. From ever-obliging Wikipedia I learn that in English it's called Fireweed or Rosebay Willowherb. One of its names in Swedish would translate "navvy rose" because they are very common along the railways.

(Without the blessings of Wikipedia, by the way, I would not know much about anything.)

Stopping for Lunch

Just as I sat down at the table to have lunch today, I noticed I had company. Well, not actually in the flat, but outside the window. A whole flock of birds invading the nearest rowan and/or whitebeam trees, where there were still some frozen berries left...



Some day I shall really have to get a better camera for birdwatching! At first I thought they were Waxwings (Bombycilla -  sidensvans), but they did not seem to quite fit the image. I guess they were probably Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris - björktrast, snöskata). They seemed to be dark greyish on the back, sort of reddish brown on the chest, and white underneath.



When the birds left, I dare say there weren't many berries left!

Hard times for birds as well as people lately...
-17 degrees C this morning!

Leisure

Earlier this week, GB at Eagleton Notes had a post about making time to "stop and stare". He also referred back to an earlier post in which he included in full the poem from which that expression comes - Leisure, by W H Davies. I liked that poem so much that I printed it out. I'd also like to repeat it here:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.


No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.


No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.


No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.


No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.


A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

This morning, I went for a walk. My plan was to go for a stroll first, and on the way back pop in at the supermarket to pick up a few things. I'm a town girl, and going to the supermarket on a Sunday doesn't usually bother me, if it happens to be practical...

But today, Nature overwhelmed me with the most spectacular show I think I ever saw. I had to stop and stare!!! I'll pay my respects to the supermarket another day. Today, by the time I got as far as that place on my walk, I could no longer bring myself to break the atmosphere of tranquility and beauty by going in there. It would actually have felt like a sacrilege...

First, there was the morning mist on the river, lifting gently...





... revealing the whole bridge railing full of spiderwebs, a long row of them, one after the other, dew drops making them look like jewellery in the low morning sunlight...








So I passed the supermarket, without going in.

Instead I turned around, and went back again along the river...

Then, under the high alder trees, suddenly there was the song and dance of hundreds of birds, high up among the branches and leaves...



They were much too high up to let me identify them properly, or catch them with the camera... They were quite small. The ones I caught a glimpse of looked like great tits. This surprised me though, because those usually stay here for the winter. At least we see some of them then, too. But I've never, at any time of the year, seen like a hundred or more of them together before, behaving like this.The overwhelming impression was a concert of praise and excitement, like a last gathering and rejoicing over the autumn colours, before leaving to go south for the winter. I have never seen anything like it. I have never heard anything like it. They were fluttering about all the time. At the same time, leaves were dropping from the trees. Sometimes, you could not distinguish whether that yellowish thing headed towards the ground was a leaf or a bird.

Again, I stopped for a long, long time and just stared!
Finally I went home, because my feet were getting cold from all the standing still...



At home, I looked up the great tit  (Parus major) in my bird book. It says most of them stay here over winter. But some do leave, "especially certain years"... because of lack of food. Made me wonder if it was that slush-attack the day before yesterday that made them decide to leave! Or if they can sense in other ways that it is going to be a bad winter...? Anyway, it was a really impressive farewell-concert...

More pictures from today's walk in my Picture Book. I took I-know-not-how-many photos of the spider webs, because it was hard to determine how they would actually come out...! More might be coming up in future posts...

Perspective Matters

Last Tuesday, I wrote a post about Walking My Camera, and coming home with a lot of pictures. I only showed you a few of them, though. Now I'm going to take you on a walk with me around the same lake, where there is also a bird sanctuary. The reason for this is that besides some unusual birds (which I don't have the names for) I also at one point had a very surprising sight of something completely different. For a moment, I almost thought Aliens had landed - and then I'm not talking birds! The Thing was Huge, and because of that there were two things about it that surprised me: One was that I had not seen It the last time I walked around the same lake only a few weeks earlier. The other strange thing was that only a moment after I saw It this time, It was out of sight again, and did not reappear.


We start from the south end of the lake, and walk north along the west side.


12:11 Here are some birds I don't know the name of.



12:13 Approaching bird sanctuary.



12:15 Black swans are not a common sight.



Some birds are kept within fence.



12:27 The north end of the lake.



12:36 Now we're on the east side looking back across the lake at the sanctuary.



12:38 Further away from the sanctuary.



12:40 Further still. All peaceful and quiet.
12:45 Next time I turn round to look back, there It is:



A few more steps... And It was out of sight again! Spooky.



12:48 Back at the south end of the lake. No It in sight!

Of course It is no space ship, even if it does seem rather 'alien' in these idyllic surroundings... The only reason for UFOs entering my mind in connection with It was really a recent discussion with someone... ;) It is here to stay, because It is part of a new district heating power plant, at quite a distance from this idyllic lake. And only visible from a certain point of view, if you walk around the lake anti-clockwise. Last time, just like now, I walked round clockwise; and then you don't see It at all, unless - like I did now - you happen to turn around and look back at exactly the right (or wrong) spot!

Walking My Camera

I love autumn leaves

Typical behaviour pattern this September month:
I discovered a letter today that I really should have posted last week, and which my dad really really should have posted two weeks before that; only (besides the fact he has not been able to walk to the mailbox for a long time) he had not even opened and read the letter which the return form came in (when I visited him last weekend); and then I too had too many other things to deal with last week, so forgot about this piece of paper; and only re-found it today... (In the meantime, it is more than likely this delay may have resulted in more correspondence from the same authorities, which most likely will also not have got opened...)

Anyway! Realizing how it was, I decided to go post the letter immediately (better late than never). Then I remembered that this is the week they will be taking down some mailboxes around here, and changing the times for emptying the rest of them... So I might have to go further than usual to find somewhere to post the letter. But since it was an exceptionally bright and clear Autumn day, why not bring my camera along, too, and go for a bit of a walk.

Now, I'm beginning to know where that leads to! Last weekend when my brother and I went on that walk with his dog - a Cairn terrier named Harry - I discovered that for me, my Camera has become my Dog! Harry the terrier runs along happily at good pace, then suddenly stops to sniff at something close to the ground, for quite a long time. Walking with Brother and Dog, I disovered that my own behaviour, when attached to Camera, is very much like Harry's... Suddenly I see a mushroom (or butterfly, depending on the time of year), and I have to stoop down and get a macro close-up shot (although I'm really not very good at stooping down). Harry, by the way, got very curious about my behaviour - whenever I stopped and stooped, he did so, too, to be sure he hadn't missed anything...


Brother and Dog, last weekend

Anyway. Back to today... As I said, I'm beginning to know where it leads to, taking the camera for a walk. I intend it to be a brisk 20 minutes. The camera gets quite other ideas. It's a hunting camera, it will want little flowers, and sun shining through yellow and red autumn leaves, and mirror images in water, and whatnot... So besides the camera, I packed a small thermos of tea, and a banana, or I might faint before I got home again (it was getting close to lunch time).

After posting the letter (hooray, the mailbox closest to me had not been taken down yet! - I only hope they also still empty it...) I walked on to a park with a lake where they also have a bird sanctuary. I walked all around the lake. This took me a very long time, because my camera went wild chasing birds. More than usual of the unusual ones seemed to be outside the fence today...


Couple of Swans

Then something happened that really made today rise way above a "typical" camera walk. A couple of strangers (human, not birds) came up to me and promoted me to wedding photograper! They were newly-weds, coming straight from the ceremony it seemed, for a little romantic walk in the park... I took four shots of them with their camera, which I'm afraid I can't show you. But then I sneaked one shot of them from behind with my own, as they were walking away from me, hand in hand... It's a little blurry, because I forgot to put it back from macro-mode. But quite nice anyway, I think.


Couple of Humans

I got home eventually, after stopping to get a hotdog on the way (tea and banana wasn't quite enough). With about 110 new photos in my camera, all taken today. All in all, in the month of September alone, I've been taking somewhere around 600 photographs. I've gone absolutely Nuts!!! Is there a cure?