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31  Community Forums / The Lounge / Re: COVID19 on: May 03, 2020, 05:08:34 PM
polls are polls but there as one out today that i enjoyed

67% thought that the UK was underprepared for the pandemic. 67% being a low number i thought given we rehearsed it in 2018 and then did nothing about the conclusions of the war gaming

61% then said they thought the UK government was handling it well. Which i thought was hugely high.

Not withstanding the complexity of the situation and the unpreparedness in 2018-19 we had January warnings ignored, Cheltenham and Liverpool/Atletico going ahead, Boris happy to shake hands with everyone , two weeks dicking around with herd immunity without a vaccine, going into lockdown late only when Macron threatened to shut the borders, slow build up of testing, no strategy yet for track and trace.....and flying half blind into a potential easing of the lockdown in stages from sometime this month onwards

61% handling it well!!

Oh no! Kuku has hacked Tighty's account   Grin

Geo
32  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 03, 2020, 05:05:33 PM
I haven't heard a cuckoo for at least 4 years.

“The primrose bank, the wimpling burn,
The cuckoo on the milkwhite thorn,
The wanton lambs at rosy morn,
Shall glad my heart, my Dearie, O.”

Apparently they are in decline South of the Border but remaining steady in numbers in Scotland.

Geo
33  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 03, 2020, 11:11:14 AM
Thanks for that tip on the app.  As I half expected, my eldest got up and the youngest didn't. 

The app clearly isn't 100% reliable, but...

assuming it is, I need to revise my dunnock to sparrow ratio; even though I have seen dunnocks before, I have been assuming most brownish small birds were sparrows until now.

I need to watch out for treecreepers on the way back from my run.  I guess they are pretty elusive, but I guess they should be there, just I have never identified one near here.  Maybe I'll spend some time listening to recordings so I can pick their song easier.

Goldfinches were a big surprise; they are a very rare sight in my garden, but the app suggests there are a lot about.

A lot of the time, there was so much noise the app was struggling to break down individual birds.  We have a lot of birds round here, and it picked out about 20 different ones.  Most of the time the app seemed to be making good identifications from the ones I knew and have seen in the garden.  It wasn't perfect, for example it did hear a fair few jackdaws I was sceptical of.  I'd still very much recommend it.

We had a cup of tea and some raisin toast when we got in, which was very welcome; we had gone out in hoodies when coats may have been needed. My daughter wants to do it again, so not the disaster I feared.

Yeah I find the mic to be very sensitive  and it picks up so much of the background noise too.

I've only ever seen one tree creeper a couple of weeks ago, didn't even know of them till Springwatch last year. The one I seen started near the bottom of the tree and quickly made it's way up, I didn't have my camera so no pic.

Glad it was of some use. I've yet to hear a Cuckoo this year this area is normally good for them, we are quite near Penicuik which translates to "Hill of the Cuckoo" I might have to take a jaunt along that way.

Geo

34  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 08:24:54 PM
Cracking pics Geo. The wren pics are fabulous, great bokeh in the close up.

I especially like the pic of the blue tit on the wire. Not easy to get such nice focus and exposure with that bright background. you must have a very steady hand. Are you still using the same camera BTW?



I like your collie. Liver and white ones are a bit unusual, they remind me of Australian cattle dogs.

 Click to see full-size image.


Nice to see you're doing the responsible thing and making sure he's sound with livestock.


That looks like a nice part of the world your in now.

Great to hear from you.

Thats a bonny beast.

Yeah he's very comfortable around the horses especially. A lot of the walks here are bridle paths and he's became a bit of a favourite of the stable lasses on their morning run outs.

Unfortunately my Nikon got soaked while we were at the lakes a couple of years back and gave up the ghost. I'm currently using a Lumix DC-FZ82 bridge camera. Does an ok job and I'd like to get another decent Nikon body as I've still got the lenses, however I don't want to fork out the ridiculous prices that they're asking even for 2nd hand ones. I'll keep looking though.

Geo
35  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 08:15:08 PM
Every morning around the same area I also hear the fantastic song of the Mistle/song Thrush, you may remember in the early days of my photographic jaunts I captured a video of one which I posted (maybe in the Camera Club thread)

Yesterday I located, by accident, where his stage was. He sits high atop a large fir and unfortunately my camera isn't equipped well enough to get a real close up of him. I did take a video of him singing his wonderful notes which I'll stick up at some point once I've loaded it to youtube.

I'll leave these here for you though

Geo

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36  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 08:05:20 PM
It became apparent that there was an abundance of Wrens in the area with the hits I was getting on Bird Up, I was aware of the call of the wren from escapades in years gone by and probably my favourite image that I've captured over the years was of a wren sitting atop a tree stump. They can be incredibly hard to capture due to their size and also their shyness. Unfortunately I can't locate that image anymore.

But you can never mistake the call of the wren once you know it as it can be one of the loudest and clearest of the lot. On Wednesday I set myself the goal of persevering in an area I knew there were a number of them to see if I could catch a glimpse and at best if I could capture an image.

I positioned myself on a small bridge in that area and just sat down, took about an hour, however I was rewarded. Not the greatest pics I've taken but I know you will understand the great pleasure they give me:

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37  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:54:18 PM
As you can imagine, Bramley loves being out and about and over the last wee while I've introduced him to sheep, rabbits and horses which are all abundant in this area (there are quite a few large stables round and about this way.

I've tried to teach him that they are no threat to him and there's no need to bark/chase, he's really taken to it and always greets the horses in the morning:

 Click to see full-size image.


38  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:49:05 PM
Is he a fox terrier Geo?

Nice to hear from you btw.

He's a Border Collie Ralph although he does have a bit of a foxy look about him.

Hope your well sir.

Geo
39  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:47:59 PM
Before lockdown we would drop Mrs Geo off at work then head to Portobello beach or up the Pentland hills. At that time I was only carrying my phone which I used to take pics. Currently we restrict ourselves to the many wonderful walks that start around the village here and I've started taking my camera with me.

The dawn chorus around here is tremendous an as I said to Doobs earlier I put the Bird Up app on my phone to help identify the birds I was hearing. Unfortunately my sight isn't what it used to be and it's more difficult finding the blighters in amongst the trees.

A selection of some of the better images I've been able to capture:

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40  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:31:34 PM
Each morning at around 5:15 he wakes me if I'm still sleeping by coming to my side of the bed and gently nudging me in the face with his cold nose. We're usually up and out by 5:30, the sunrise this morning was particularly good:

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41  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:18:43 PM
We named him Bramley, for no other reason than it was a name that came up and I liked it, he's now almost 8 months and a complete joy:

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42  Poker Forums / Diaries and Blogs / Re: Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary on: May 02, 2020, 07:13:50 PM
So anyway,

About 18 months ago I decided I wasn't enjoying working in the banking group after close to 19 years (I had went there straight from finishing my time in the Army) the whole environment had got nastier especially after 2008/9 and the bailouts. I felt the place just became unbearable.

I won't go into too much detail, suffice to say my attributes of organisational and admin abilities and my honesty and straight talking which were coveted by others and helped me progress in the group at the outset was no longer the fashion and I was never going to be a "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" sort of guy, I decided to leave.

As I mentioned to you in December we moved out of the city in October to a former mining village close to Roslin, home of the Chapel made famous in the Da Vinci code book and film. My intention was to spend a couple of months settling in and then go looking for a canine walking partner, my youngest son jumped the gun a bit and in November surprised me with an early Xmas:

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43  Community Forums / The Lounge / Re: blonde Camera Club on: May 02, 2020, 06:27:09 PM


Lol

It's taking an age to load the pics I want and in between Mrs Geo giving me other tasks. I will complete something tonight

Geo
44  Community Forums / The Lounge / Re: blonde Camera Club on: May 02, 2020, 03:52:14 PM
Many thanks Adam, I can complete an update for Tom, he's probably getting impatient

Geo
45  Community Forums / The Lounge / Re: blonde Camera Club on: May 02, 2020, 03:43:00 PM
woohoo

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