Category: Other creatures

Christmas is coming – the goose is getting illuminated (and pursued by Sherlock Holmes)

Indeed, in Marylebone Road:

The same night I photoed the car and the leaves and Sherlock Holmes smoking.

I photoed many photos of these geese, in their clutches of four on each street lamp, while waiting for the Curry Night Boys to assemble, my favourite photo being this one …:

… because it turns the four geese into something that looks more like one giant insect. If I had showed only that one, it might have taken you a few moments to work out what was going on.

Okay, so, apart from four geese on each street light, what is going on? Why these geese? And why those strange blue smudges?

It took me a while, but eventually I came across this guide to Christmas street lights, which comes complete with a street map of the Baker Street “quarter”. These Marylebone Road geese are lights clutch number one:

Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, the ornate lamppost columns marking the gateway to the Quarter feature illuminated geese sporting blue jewels (carbuncles).

So, Sherlock Holmes again. If you are in that particular bit of London, you can’t escape the guy.

Wikipedia summarises the plot of this story, which involves a goose getting the above-mentioned blue carbuncle stuffed in its crop, concerning which Wikipedia interpolates angrily …:

… (the fact that geese do not have a crop has been regarded as Arthur Conan Doyle’s greatest blunder) …

… and being chased across London. By Sherlock Holmes.

Highly commended bird photos

A few from here:

The originals are only 600×400, but still worth a click through.

The top few medal-winning photos will get lots of views, but it’s the quality of the pack at the front of the pack, so to speak, that impresses me. As I keep saying here, the real story of photoing now is not that the most brilliant photoers are indeed brilliant, but that everyone else who is willing to spare only amateur amounts of time and money can be pretty brilliant also.

Bird keeping its head still

Indeed:

I challenge you to think of a better way to use the next fourteen seconds of your life.

Arthur Colley’s diary goes missing

Photoed by me this afternoon in Warwick Way:

November 4th was quite a while back, so maybe it’s all been sorted by now. Hope so. But if not, sounds like he needs the help of somebody younger, with social media expertise. I googled “Arthur Colley lost diary” and got lots about another Arthur who lost a diary, but nothing involving any Arthur Colley.

People who claim to have seen aliens have actually just seen baby owls

Here.

A horse named Covfefe

And it’s doing well, according to this Daily Caller report a couple of weeks ago:

A horse named “Covfefe” won a Breeder’s Cup event at Santa Anita today. Named after President Trump’s famous mistweet, she has now won six of her first eight races.

Further proof that Trump has the best words.

Photoers in October 2014

The majority of them being men.

Do you think that my only real interest in photoing photoers is that it is an excuse to photo ladies adopting pretty poses? That’s definitely part of it. As I’ve said several times before, someone should do a ballet based on digital photoers. But me not allowing recognisable faces makes it look more of a bodily obsession than it really is. Basically, I think the entire phenomenon of mass digital photography is a fascinating moment in social and communicational history, and one that has made a lot of people, me definitely included, very happy. And photoing happy, absorbed people is fun.

Which means that photoing men is fun too:

I think there are more men featured in this photo-clutch partly because the weather, that day in October, was rather cold. When it gets colder, women’s clothing gets less interesting and men’s clothing gets more interesting, converging on a single style based on keeping out the cold and not caring about style so much. In plain English: men tend to put on interesting coats and jackets and, above all (in both senses) hats; women tend towards covering up both themselves and their best outfits. (With women’s outfits, less is often more!)

Also, in photo 8, there’s a monkey wearing only shorts.

Creatures hitting the news in the USA

I’m not just talking about the hero dog who helped to catch an austere religious scholar, whose austere religious scholarship inspired him also to become a rapist and a torturer.

I’m also talking about goats:

A hungry herd of 500 goats has helped save the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library from the California wildfires.

In May, the library hired the goats to clear flammable scrub surrounding the complex as a preventative measure.

The goats ate the brush, creating a fire break that slowed the flames and gave firefighters extra time to react.

Okay, the goats didn’t exactly put the fire out. That was done by firefighters. But, the goats did help.

This next titbit is a bit stale, from two months ago, but I am still interested, because it concerns a bridge:

Engineers in southern California are hard at work designing the biggest wildlife corridor in the world, to extend over US Highway 101 to the north-west of Los Angeles.

The corridor will connect different parts of the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which is crucial to the future of mountain lions – but it will help other species as well. The $87m bridge has entered its final design phase and is on track to open in 2023.

Other Californian creature news involved voracious purple sea urchins:

Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death.

Meanwhile in Colorado, some 66-million-year-old fossils have been discovered. I’m guessing something threw their delicate ecosystem into disarray.

The delicate publication process for this posting was also thrown into disarray, by me pushing the “Publish” button last night, at a time when I should merely have been pressing “Save Draft”. Sorry about that.

Mobile phone with unicorns

Indeed:

With a very blurry City Hall behind. Photoed just before I photoed this photo.

Characteristic photoer stuff with that left fifth finger.

Black bird on street lamp

Yesterday was my day for finally admitted that Summer has, for a while now, been well and truly over. I wore socks and shoes to go out, for the first time (and then socks in bed). I didn’t wonder whether I should go out with a cardigan of some sort, I just went out with a cardigan of some sort, on. And, I installed my annual winter-months double glazing, which I do with bubble wrap and masking tape.

Before I did this latter project, I noticed a photogenic circumstance to be seen through my still easily-openable living room window. This:

Yes, a quite big black bird, on a street lamp. (And indeed, looking very autumnal and post-summery.)

I like London’s street lamps. They are very variable, often rather ornate in the fake-antique style, done with more than half an eye towards impressing tourists, especially in the centre of London. And if it is tourist-driven, this habit has spread to other non-touristy areas such as the one where I live. This habit being one which, like I say, I like.

And I like this bird. It is definitely a black bird. But is it a blackbird? I’m guessing: not. Too big, and with a front end (bill?) that is way too big. Is it a crow? A jackdaw? Or some other brand of bird unknown to me? Any birdophiles reading this are respectfully requested to supply guidance.