Day: February 4, 2018

An Impractical Guide to Lisbon

Pocket Diary Budapest

Lisbon then is at the end of the world, on the edge of it, Lisbon is the fear of toppling over into the abyss of what you do not yet know. Lisbon is the city of dozens of sad poets walking the pavements shiny with the mild rain of the Mediterranean, which never pierces the soul, but makes it ache in dull ways of no clear finality. Lisbon is the clatter of trams, and especially the clatter of trams that were never really there, the clatter of small red trams you imagined to be rushing out of the darkness, only to realize they were the flutter of a bird’s wing. Lisbon is the flight of a seagull over a river that at some obscure point, out of the blue, almost unexplainably, becomes an ocean. Lisbon is a city of old promises, of old journeys on the seven seas, of old…

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Total Super Blue-Blood Eclipse of the Moon! 4:51-6:07 AM PST 1-31-18

SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG

Blood Moon of October 2015 (Deanne Fortnam – TimeandDate.com)

OK. Hit it!

Bom ba ba bom ba bom ba bom bom
Ba ba bom ba ba bom dang a dang dang
Ding a dong ding
Blue moon!

You could not be a teenager, or anywhere close to being a teenager, in 1961 America, and not hear this song. Radio-blasting from homes, apartments, passing cars, drive-ins and – if you were lucky enough to own one – one of those new pocket-sized transistor radios. It was everywhere.

The lyrics, or at least half of them, were deathlessly simple. Certainly worth repeating, which the backup singers, especially bass vocal Fred Johnson, did – relentlessly – throughout the song. Feel free to push the red button-arrow below and sing along with the Marcels’ original version. We know that you already know it.

Blue moon, moon, moon, moon, moon
Dit Di Dit Di…

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Rooisand Outing

Hermanus Bird Club

No less than thirty keen birders braved the strong wind this morning to go birding at Rooisand Reserve.  As expected the water levels were very low and, with the windy conditions, birds were few and far between, however, we managed to see 47 species, so it wasn’t too bad after all.  There was no sign of the White Wagtail, which created such stir a few weeks ago, nor did we see the much anticipated Osprey or Fish Eagle, but there were a couple of Cape Longclaws, and four Great Crested Grebes were spotted on the water.

The list included Bar-throated Apalis, Bokmakerie, Cape Bulbul, Common Buzzard, Jackal Buzzard, Cape Canary, Cape Cormorant, White-breasted Cormorant, Namaqua Dove, Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Common Fiscal, Egyptian Goose, Spur-winged Goose, Great Crested Grebe, Common Greenshank, Hartlaub’s Gull, Kelp Gull, Black-headed Heron, Grey Heron, Sacred Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Hadeda Ibis, Pied Kingfisher, Yellow-billed Kite, Cape…

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