Count the Goslings

I make it 16….

Who is your favourite muppet?

Mine is Rowlf

Big Garden Birdwatch

This weekend sees the annual Big Garden Birdwatch take place across the UK. Organised by the RSPB this is the biggest bird surevy in the world. Participants (and that can be you!) are asked to record the birds that visit their garden over the course of one hour at some point this weekend.

Now unfortunately I don’t have a garden. I can see plenty of birds from my flat, but they are mainly waterfowl, and I’m not sure that Canada Geese, Swans and Moorhens is exactly what they are after. However, this morning as I walked through my close I had the pleasure of seeing two very healthy looking robins just outside my flat.

I like the fact that robins are terriorital. I feel that I am getting to know the little fella who sits in the tree outside my block, and his flash of red and cheery tweet brightens up my morning on the way to the station.

So, if you fancy a nice hour of hanging with our feathered friends in your garden or a local park, visit the website and get the lowdown on how you can take part.

This made me smile…

Swans in a line

I took this photo on my way to work this morning. The second cygnet broke out of the perfect line just before I took the picture.

Look to the stars

This morning a new project was launched on the internet which allows us all to look far into the universe, see things that no human eye has seen before and help extend scientific research in a quite literally ever expanding field.

Galaxy Zoo is a project where you, yes you, can help categorize galaxies.  Scientists from the US and UK have been doing this, but there over a million images that need to be analyzed, it is no small job they have on their hands.  An astrophysicist spoke about the project on radio 4 this morning.  He described how he had analyzed around 50 000 galaxies, but explained that after that sort of number you start to lose it slightly!

So if you are interested in the universe and helping to advance human understanding of it, log on and have a go.  There is a short tutorial and quick test to make sure you know what you’re doing and then you’re away!

Baby Birds

On my way home from work this evening I got my first glimpse of the newly hatched cygnets from the pair of swans that have nested just outside my block of flats.  I’ve been keeping an eye on the nest as I walk past each morning and evening and it’s just been eggs eggs eggs.  However, now they are well and truly cygnets - 4 of them!  Last year the same pair had one, and the year before two, so this must seem like right nestful!

When I went out to take the photos it seemed that that the local Canada Geese wanted a bit of the limelight as well - a family trooped by and here they are:

Get your ducks in a line!

Yesterday my American colleague used the expression ‘get your ducks in a line’.  I’d heard this phrase a few months earlier in a presentation - again from an American - and had thought it was just a metaphor that a rather strange librarian had decided to use to brighten up her PowerPoint!

So, I decided to look into the matter, and indeed it seems it is a common saying across the Atlantic in the old US of A, meaning, roughly, get everything sorted out and in order before you jump in and try to do something.

But where does it come from?  There are a couple of theories.  The most commonly occurring  explanation is that is comes from an old form of tenpin bowling where the pins were referred to as ‘duckpins’ because of their shape.  Therefore, it’s easier to knock them all down if they are in a line or row.

A more visually pleasing theory is that baby ducks are less likely to get lost if they are neatly lined up behind the mother duck.

My colleagues intuition was that it was to do with lining up ducks before you shoot them - so sort of a combination of the two.

Whichever it may be, I’m definitely going to try using it in conversation!

I’ll leave you to think about it and whilst you do here is a picture of some ducks in a line (or queue as we British English speakers prefer!)