i haven’t been writing on here mostly because i’ve been obsessively editing editing editing my scotland videos. i’m working on #5 right now, although i think it’s going to have to be 5 & 6 because it’s just so long. i was trying to make one video from each day we biked, but on the third day i did lots and lots of videotaping – i taped a little when we stopped along the bike route, i taped when we stopped at the Crannog Centre, i taped in the old hotel bar where we had lunch, in the castle we toured, at the Dewar’s whiskey plant, and at dinner in a delicious pub.
it’s 14 minutes now and since on youtube the videos MUST NOT BE MORE THAN TEN MINUTES, i’ll have to either shorten it or split it in two.
anyway, lots and lots of wild animal activity around here. i think i wrote about the baby wrens we now have in the bird house/feeder hanging over the grill on the deck. the wrens were nesting furiously, and then there were two tiny little babies poking their heads out. i shot a little video from the basement door, and then from the living room window. here are a couple of photos i took with the video camera.
and here are the videos. the first one looks better because there’s no window, but it’s harder to see because the angle is so steep. here, the wren is very very mad that i’m down there filming.
even though the picture isn’t as sharp, this is pretty amazing, getting the shot of the wren feeding the baby.
so, the wren drama yesterday – kevin opened the door down in the basement and saw one of the baby wrens just sitting there on the ground, looking up at him. uh oh, it fell out of the house. kevin put on some plastic gloves and picked it up, then carried it up to the deck. luckily i was sitting inside the living room, and he gestured for me to come out. i took the birdhouse down and kevin managed to get the baby bird back inside. he said that if he’d touched it with his bare hands, the parents would have killed it!
this morning, whew, he saw that both babies were poking their little heads out of their house.
wild animals are so vulnerable – yesterday when i was running with mollie, i saw a blue jay in the grass near the university. it could fly just a little, and it would fly a few feet then plop back down to the ground. i’m afraid its chances for survival aren’t that great.
and today, kevin saw a lone goose out in the yard. i went out and tried to feed it a hotdog bun but it kept walking away from me. kevin stayed outside, and came in to report that one of its eyes was closed and crusted over. poor thing. it came back into the yard and i was able to get close enough to feed it a whole hotdog bun. it looked a little beat up, too.
as i was downloading videos from my video camera, i saw a few that i didn’t remember. i watched them, and there was no talking at all on them and i realized that kevin must have shot them, because he’s not quite as chatty as me. here’s one of them that he took the other morning.
we’ve been going out on the boat as much as possible, and numie and noodle have joined us a couple of times. they really love the boat, and spend a lot of time running around excitedly. but eventually they settle down.
as you can see, numie has managed to do a good job or relaxing.
noodle, on the other hand, wanted to be right up front, scanning the horizon for possible threats and intruders. plus he enjoyed the great breeze.
and here’s kevin and winnie down by the dock.
i just checked on the poor injured lonely goose, and he’s now swimming near the shore. i definitely need a goose cam, don’t i?
ok then,
grace on thursday.