The Long Shadow

This morning I opened the ranch sliders and as I stepped outside I looked down on the deck at a Silvereye or Waxeye and had one of those strange moments when one is transfixed.  The bird didn't fly away but was plainly aware of my presence.  I suddenly realised that it must have flown into the glass of the ranch sliders and was at least concussed.  I closed the doors and left it to it on the grounds that any attempt to help it would almost certainly lead to heart failure through fear.  After quite a while it was looking even more distressed and I assumed that it was dying.  I have to say that I was quite upset at the suffering but there was nothing I could really do.  And then it suddenly came to life and hopped off the deck and perched in the cover of the lavender bushes below the deck.   An hour later it was gone.

It gave me to think on the fragility of life - a subject touched on in quite a few blogs recently.

And also on the illogicality of the human.  In this particular case, me.  One minute I had been, grieving over a suffering bird.  Then, quite without provocation but because they are an invasive immigrant species which I dislike, I killed two Paper Wasps.

An Evening Stroll

On Thursday evening Catriona called to see if I would like to go for a walk with her and Wendy and, of course, Misty.  Yes.  It was a cold but lovely evening and a walk seemed like a very good idea.  It turned into more of a stroll than a walk but it was good fun if of limited exercise value.

Note for those with dial-up or slow broadband:  I have tried to limit the size of these photos whilst using the extra-large setting on Blogger.  There are, however, more photos than usual on this posting.  Please let me know if you have difficulty downloading it.

 I must look these up.  There's a clump down the drive

 

 A happy Catriona

 

 There's water in the lake again

 

 Why do children have the urge to pick animals up all the time?

   Paddling through the pondweed

 

 Keep away from our babies!

   Cormorants on a handy branch

 

 Fallen down a hole

 

 Oh that poo tasted so good!

 

A Paper Wasp in the agapanthus

Paper Wasp

R. I. P.

Paper Wasp

Generally speaking I don't go round killing things. I do, however, make exceptions and will trap mice when they try and infest my property which they did with very great success in my garden shed in Lewis when I was here last year. They had a real ball. All the wellington boots became nestboxes. The grass seed all disappeared into mice stomachs or into wellington boot stores - a whole box! The mess was indescribable. Well that's probably putting it a bit strongly but my powers of descriptive writing are not good. Probably the most adventurous phrase I've ever used was in my GCE when I managed to get in "stentorian reverberations". But I can think of no way of relating that to mice.

Anyway to get back to not killing things. One of my neighbours (right outside the kitchen window in fact) is a Paper Wasp (identified as such by CJ, of course). Now one of the creatures that I will kill without any compunction is a wasp. A wasp building a nest outside my kitchen window is sure to die. Unless he/she is a Paper Wasp. CJ pointed out that they are not social and don't sting. So he/she continues to live in front of my window, thanks to CJ.