Materials Man

My wife brought me a book from the library, “say goodbye to the cuckoo” by Michael McCarthy and I finished it yesterday. It is an exploration of the birds that are thought of by us a spring-bringers, the cuckoo, the warblers, the nightingale, the spotted flycatcher, the swallows and martins etc. the author treats each bird in turn and explores it’s migration, it’s migration route and the sense of wonder it brings to us from past literature and present experiences, and the loss we feel when there is a lack of spring migrants, or worse, when they have not returned. He has access to experts and uses them to acquaint himself with the magic of each species and in turn you can’t help but become immersed yourself.

This emotional journey ends abruptly with disturbing facts, where with the ending chapters there is a chilling account of species decline. But a much more complicated set of reasons from Rachel Carson’s DDT. Essentially the major influence is climate change and the human burgeoning population that causes death and decline  of all species by chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, habitat loss, killing, soil erosion, pollution etc

If you have an iconic bird spring-bringer, start packing in more memories.

[View with PicLens]

This spot is becoming lucky, this is the gate were I photographed the fox in the sunshine. I had just crossed the gate and was on the ground when this hare runs straight towards the gate, it was in blazing sunshine and I was in the shade. As you can see it was uneasy and I was wishing the photos showed it more relaxed, like my former one of a hare stretching.  It did come to within three metres of the gate after a few sorties back and forth when I snapped it, it sniffed the ground / air and decided better to lop off. Notice the torn left lug, it’s been in the wars.

The Ospreys are still around, the crap picture here (well I am 2Km away) shows the juvenile plumage, the secondaries and primaries are all edged in white,  it looks for all the world spotted with white splashes. This is accentuated as the juvs plumage is darker than the adults.

[View with PicLens]

I love watching buzzards fly, but when I’m at the Osprey site I generally give them scant attention. However on Sunday 19/07/09 both Buzzard adults were in the air mewing together, from the week before I knew a juv was out and about, that’s why I got a picture of a mewing adult buzzard chastising me. This week I eventually spotted the juv and managed a pic before it was off, not to fly majestically,  just off, disappeared into the herbage.

Talking of disappeared, two weeks now and no signs of the marsh harriers, I was hoping to see the juvs in flight, mainly I was interested in how many juvs there were. It’s a key ingredient to breeding success, nest location success and site fidelity. No sights of any marsh harriers, need to read up on them, perhaps on fledging the whole family moves south, feeding as they go. Birds are such secretive creatures that they may all be hunting miles away or all in dense cover near the nest full of grub.

Time is the factor in being a specific species expert, as well as questioning (from a scientific viewpoint) what you are observing.

[View with PicLens]

These sand martins have found a sand pile between two piles of crushed concrete, on the site of the M74 extension. Is this a statement of desperation for nesting sites? I believe this is the case, should not parks, national trust ground and other publicly held ground not erect artificial nest sites?

see links

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/advice/sandmartins/index.asp

http://www.users.freenetname.co.uk/~sandmartin/page2.html

Needless to say the birds have been protected by those cuddly construction chaps.

David Welsh, I know you are a busy man, but the artificial site on concrete legs would be an easy construction project using mostly spare materials. If you could place this  in the land made available near where the martins are now with client permission, how green? how good? how lasting and a precedent for others to follow.

[View with PicLens]

I did predict to myself that the the Osprey juvs would be flying soon, and both chicks are now on the wing. It really is great to see these birds arrive, produce fledglings and subsequently leave. I got a bit confused as a juvenile was on the branch that later was occupied by an Osprey with a Pike, still alive and I’m afraid being eaten. I thought well that’s cool, hardly on the wing and it  has a fish! Of course it was the male and after he had his bit from the head I watched him land on the nest and release it to a begging  juv. He then went off to the right were you can see him. Eventually both juvs and the female were on the nest and the Juv who got first chance at feeding from the male, kept the fish, subsequently released it to the next Juv, the female by now had stopped her begging calls, and the next juv fed. I went off and returned in half an hour to see the female feeding, presumably on the same fish. What a nice domestic scene, but I wondered if the female Osprey had lost hunting skills being fed by the male for 3 months, or was it just a case of that fish is big enough I’ll wait my turn to get a bit? Well I guess she could hunt well enough but when grub is served why not wait your turn?

You can see the difference in the male to the female Osprey by looking at the chest, the female is much browner across the chest, trust me this took a while to work out.

The neighbouring buzzards obviously have a juv who I could hear mewing, mewing differently from the parents, you can tell its a buzzard but a Juv, kind of a begging call and a mew combined, anyway one of the parents took exception to me being too near, some 200m, so I got some pics of it atop a tree,  perfectly balanced on one leg.  Using the timed release on my ancient Nikon 990 I had to take quite a few shots to actually catch him “mewing”. I often wonder why buzzards mew when hunting, surely the element of surprise is compromised? they are truly a success story since the 1981 law kicked in. Just imagine how many buzzards were trapped, shot or poisoned to keep the population from what it is now to say 20 years ago, then ask yourself, who did all this culling?

http://www.ukmotorwayarchive.org/

I had forgotten about this site above, for those of us who have constructed a few of these it is a nice trip down memory lane. In those days the testing consultant was appointed by the client and under the control of the consulting engineer. Staff for the summer was the staff for the winter, difficult to find work for ten techs in the middle of winter. In the 70’s and up to the middle 80’s there was no computers either, so no  reports could be complied. We had to do the end of contract reports calculating standard deviations with calculators, nobody read the blooming reports after completion anyway. I am sure all the tedious work put into them is not even at a status of gathering dust somewhere. These reports would never have seen the inside of Victoria Quay.

But the memories are of sunny days, long hours and good people, life was not so fast then. A lot of the M90 Craigend team are still around, still in materials, some have wandered and got lost, David Hutton, Iain Campbell, John Anthony, the “digger” with his dingo, John Neilson, Graham ??? who was on the Bankfoot job, Ian Bonar, Bobby and Tony Greer, Dave Wylie…………..

come on Geoff , Bill, Henry, Lindsay, Gary help me out with these bloody names, of the disappeared!!

[View with PicLens]

This was taken in daylight as you can see, on a golf course. My pal Neil Davidson took this with a Nikon D60 with a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor Lens. The benefit of being on a golf course is the owls are perfectly used to people and being long eared do hunt in the daylight. I have been to this site with Neil and you get the most amazing views of these splendid birds, if the midges let you. They do make a noise like a squeaky hinge as advertised.

Neil has a collection of good and great bird pics, but still seems reluctant to share them with us on this site!!

My Palestinian pal has been given his letter for his finalisation of employment, and has had his final redundancy meeting which I attended.  Bassam Haj Ibrahim (Bass or Baz) is our QA and environmental manager and a casualty of our recent round of redundancies. A man, given his Palestinian background, who needs luck now, more than ever. He has an obvious advantage in Middle East employment as Arabic is his first language, so I hope his work search in that direction goes well. Inshallah. Although retrenchment is a tool to use in times such as these, you do wonder at the staff to keep to win work and staff to keep for when work is won. As QA is a fundamental requirement with all/most contracts, who manages QA effectively without a QA manager?

I hear the usual politician blurb about spending to create jobs, well I’m in construction in Scotland and it is not happening, perhaps the statistics on national spending can as usual obfuscate the facts. The facts appear to be TS’s spending is on hold to increase the budget for the new Forth crossing, NIMBYS are blocking renewable energy contracts, in particular windfarms, and every client who can delay a project is doing so to play the “new” marketplace where survival and not margins are the theme. Banks are only lending money to suit themselves. Well capitalism rules so you can’t really argue with a client with a budget. Remember the Golden rule, he who has the gold, rules.

Anyway Bass I am sadder than you will know about your redundancy, as I am a Scottish male and reluctant to show my feelings, but if there is a God, and it seems doubtful given the golden rule and the state of the Palestinian people,  then may your God go with you.

Please keep in touch through this site, so we can all follow your next adventure in life.

Masalama

[View with PicLens]

I have seen a few dead Greenfinches during the last couple of years, near my feeders, but tonight I disturbed this poor Greenfinch while weeding. It almost certainly has trichomoniasis as it was displaying all the symptoms. Make sure all your feeders are keep clean, for more info go to

http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/health/sickbirds/greenfinches.asp

When younger I could have killed this bird saying it was a better and quicker end for it, thought about it tonight and could not do it.

old age cometh not alone !

In the old Morrisons (just a bit before my time) when we were owned by the Morrison family there were two Ian Raes, one was sales and one was techy. I never knew this appellation applied to Ian Rae (techy) until a few months ago when I visited a Tarmac quarry that Morrisons used to own and I was having the crack with the guys.

Well Ian Rae (techy) hung up his boots at the end of June 09 (metaphorically), as Ian will wear them till they have holes in them, not that he is tight, it’s just to get value from them. Well anyway a good materials engineer is now on gardening leave forever, and a good time to exit as IAN 73 and HD 26/06 version 1 hit the specs to confuse and bemuse.

Not that Ian would not have understood them but there comes a point, and the EU specs do this, when you ask yourself. ” how did we build anything successfully before this EU joining”?

Ian Rae like me and others made a living from the motorway expansion in the 70’s, and we successfully incorporated ourselves in organisations that tendered, tested and build said roads.

The market place today is different and more varied, flood prevention and renewables, some new roads. But still we will miss the expertise of those who’s wide experience of materials engineering was built up in pioneering days and had a breadth to it, rather than some of  today’s materials engineers who are one dimensional to the materials section they belong to.

Ian  Rae (techy) will be missed, I especially liked to hear him espouse on place names and we both had a long term liking for Neil Munro’s  Parahandy tales.

Ah Dougie Dougie if Ian Rae waas here he would tell ye himsell

“Chust wan of Brutain’s hardy sons”, he certainly is, and long may he remain so.

[View with PicLens]

4 July, and from the picture here you can see the Ospreys are now well grown. I spent some time watching them, that is the female on the right, you need to open the picture, she has more brown across her chest, and this photo could have been the last as nothing happened. This is often the case, the male must be bringing in plenty to eat as the female was at the nest and you can see from the chicks size, could be left ( in my opinion anyway). I had good views of the female marsh harrier,  several times, once about 5km away and one closer. She was perched on a tree when a crow flew over the nest area, immediately she was up and covered the nest shepherding the crow away, her chicks must be about ready for flight in the next week or so. I wonder if they were wing tagged and or radio tagged, with a bit of luck I might see the wing tags,  it is surprisingly difficult to see a wing tag on a twisting and bobbing, in flight, harrier.

What else is surprisingly difficult is identifying some butterflies, the pictures here are ringlets, and it took me an hour with three books to reach that conclusion, the darker is the male. last week there were none of these, this week plenty. If I had got a good view of the underwing it would have been easier to identify from the internet and books. I can’t recall seeing these in Scotland before.

Another walk another lesson learned.