Author Archives: admin

Scottish Birds

Posted on August 30, 2015 by admin

The big Starting with the giants, we were buzzed by a magnificent grey heron at St Andrews: The stars — unfortunately fairly unapproachable — were of course the ospreys. Odin the Magnificent at Loch Garten, in his favourite camera tree: … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature, Scotland | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Wallace

Posted on August 8, 2015 by admin

This week, The Wallace by Blind Harry, or Henry the Minstrel, was finally posted to Project Gutenberg. It took just under two years for it to work its way through the Distributed Proofreaders site, which is actually pretty good, given … Continue reading →

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Colours of Bratislava

Posted on August 4, 2015 by admin

Orange, white and blue kingfishers: Red, blue, yellow and black Bee-eaters: Green frog (and snake): Black kite: Miss Black:

Posted in Nature, Pets, Slovakia | 1 Comment

A Treatise of Buggs

Posted on August 2, 2015 by admin

I had some light relief recently polishing off this little book at DP. In less than 50 pages, we get the strange but true* story of how the author discovered the secret of eliminating nitts from an ancient, but unnaturally … Continue reading →

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Pond Life

Posted on July 26, 2015 by admin

Much of our free time recently has been spend near the Morava and Danube, which have backwaters and lakes very popular with a range of species. The kings are of course the storks: over the past week, we’ve seen the … Continue reading →

Posted in Austria, Nature, Slovakia | 1 Comment

Reading List 3

Posted on July 2, 2015 by admin

45 books finished in the first half of the year. I’d roughly divide them into: Proper Litercher Quarantine — Jim Crace All That I Am — Anna Funder The Inn at the Edge of the World — Alice Thomas Ellis … Continue reading →

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Nesting

Posted on June 26, 2015 by admin

We’ve been rather fixated on the storks recently, but other birds have been equally industrious. Not far from the storks’ nest, a rather elegant pigeon had made her nest on a street sign. One chick died and was ejected: She … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature, Slovakia | 1 Comment

Morava Meadow

Posted on June 21, 2015 by admin

The meadow by the Morava river has been busy over the last few weeks. Of course the storks are the stars; we first saw them on eggs on April 3rd; by 16th May the chicks had hatched, and they’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature, Slovakia | 1 Comment

A Year at the Shore

Posted on May 23, 2015 by admin

In Andrew O’Hagan’s “Our Fathers”, the narrator as a young boy is given a book by his old teacher as a parting gift: “A Year at the Shore”, by Philip Henry Gosse. Intrigued, I found a scan of the book … Continue reading →

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New Storks

Posted on May 17, 2015 by admin

The storks have had a visit from the stork: We counted four, or possibly five little dinosaurs.   Mum and Dad did some yoga together at changeover time:

Posted in Nature, Slovakia | 1 Comment