[World's most expensive book goes back on sale]

Wouldn't we all love to have a copy of this?!


World's most expensive book goes back on sale

A book that sold for a record-breaking price of $8.8m (£5.7m) a decade ago is going back on sale at Sotheby's, the auction house has announced.

John James Audubon's Birds of America will go under the hammer along with other items from the collection of the late Lord Hesketh.

The book contains 1,000 life-sized illustrations of almost 500 species.

Only 119 complete copies of the 19th-century book are known to exist, and 108 are owned by museums and libraries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11242275

Given this auspicious (or, for her, "suspicious"!) occasion, I thought Donna deserved her very own topic!

Well done on the 6,000 post, Donna! No one can beat you!

Slainte! (... and then some!)

 

Here's good one to bookmark and browse at your leisure. It's the site for the annual Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, done, I think, with BBC Wildlife magazine and the Natural History Museum.

One of the bird images is a terrific shot of a juv Bald Eagle about to catch a Red-Winged Blackbird. As my wee nephew would say (he is still working on his verb tenses): "How he do's that?!"

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/

Donna, you googled it all wrong.  Don't you remember the REAL name of that bird?  Siobhan Ruck told us the official name on the Yahoo board YEARS ago.  It's an LBJ bird...Little brown job... 

Ya got that one right, Ei! I know loads of LBJs!

BTW - whatever happened to Siobhan? Also Jim in Atlanta? I see his birthday is coming up and don't remember seeing him here in a long time...

What a lovely story Bobbi and well told. Thank ye dear lady. AND, what happened to all your puppies??

Well, two of the littles crossed the Rainbow Bridge fairly quickly... I cried. We got homes for 3 - really good ones! And the other two, we could not bear to part with. They and their mom lived long and happy lives here in Wicklow... mostly under the kitchen table...

Chirpy Bird-Day, Helen P!




 

[A DAD'S LIFE: We have a fresh batch of mewling balls of cuteness, writes ADAM BROPHY]

A gentle piece from The Irish Times... Reminds me of the time we rescued a lovely sheepdog from a fair, only for her to deliver seven puppies under the kitchen table...



A DAD'S LIFE: We have a fresh batch of mewling balls of cuteness, writes  ADAM BROPHY 

THE POOR auld dog is in love. Her beau is a shih-tzu who lives about a hundred yards down the hill. He’s the local hood, loves lying in the middle of the road, eyeing you disdainfully as you drive up, refusing to move and allow you by until his owner hollers at him to shift it. Then, slowly, he ambles to the side, occasionally taking his time to cock a leg on a tyre.

Our poor pet is smitten. She is as pretty and naive as he is all attitude. She pants around him, batting eyelashes. He walks the hill like it’s his. She’s his girl and he knows it. If he could, he’d sit on my wall, challenge me to move him along... he’d have the pouch of Old Holborn [roll-your-own] out and be tweaking his collar.

Last autumn, under cover of darkness, she slipped away for a canine rendezvous. Mickey, the James Dean mutt’s owner, accompanied her back up from her dalliance. “Looks like ye’ll be having puppies for Christmas,� he said. And we did.

When they were born, the da came around for a sniff, but at that time she wanted nothing to do with him and banished him out of the garden with a snarl. He acted nonchalant but I could tell his feathers were ruffled. We want to feel important around babies, us boys, but really we know when proceedings reach a certain stage we’ve served our purpose.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now she’d kick this young fella, this shoulder-rolling swagger hound to touch. Maybe hook up with another dachshund - one of her own kind - and settle down into respectability. Have pedigree pups, the sort that would get into the right schools, not sniff glue and set fire to warehouses.

Within weeks, up to my ankles in pup poo, I had resolved that the promise of sleek purebred pups was not enough to put up with the relentless binning of sodden newspaper... We would have her snipped and that would be that. No more local pimp boyfriend, no more nothing, just peace and quiet and clean utility room floors.

Of course, the pups grew up, got fluffy like the da and long like the ma, and charmed the hearts of all around them. A 10-minute walk on the beach became an odyssey of poking children and cooing mothers.

The pups grew and found owners and we decided not to snip, but to bide our time and maybe a few years down the track we would allow her some quality time with Saturday Night Fever dog and rekindle her love. Next time around, we would keep one of the super splendid friendly fluffballs for ourselves and spread the love among the many who had put in requests after seeing the first batch.

We thought we could manipulate this West Side Story romance for our own benefit. We figured without the intensity and determination of young love. Once her poor kids were out of the way, our brazen hussy was free once more to chase down Studly from the hill.

We sussed her plan. When the time came, we put her under lock and key, gave her a strict talking-to about morals and responsibility. She looked us straight in the eye and nodded. We trusted her; she seemed to have grown up, put the perils of youth to her back.

One day our bedroom window stood open. Although she had been under house arrest for the duration of her potential parenting season, she sensed an opportunity and slipped away at the first sign of blue skies. We realised her absence almost immediately, but still too late.

The two were locked in a Shakespearean embrace as I ran hollering down the drive with a bucket of water to cool their ardour. Their passions dampened, I prised them apart. Literally. They were stuck. On each other.

And so, nine weeks later I have a fresh batch of mewling balls of cuteness who will take their time to realise the bathroom is outside. I’ve renewed acquaintance with the rubber gloves and bucket. For this to happen once could be considered carelessness, twice, well . . .

The kids (mine) squeak and exclaim: "We are keeping one this time." The ma throws her puppy eyes at me as if to say, “What could I do? I was young and in love.� Vet for you next week, my girl.

I look at my girls and think, for the first time, I’ll be able to handle them as teens. No bother.

OMG, I had forgotten about this.  Paul, your editing is terrific.  It doesn't look nearly as silly as it felt doing it!
Kapi in VT

It doesn't look silly?! Sheesh, that's the only reason I want to watch!

I didn't say it didn't look silly.  Just not as silly as it seemed at the time we did it. 
Kapi in VT

Delighted to hear that Silliness is present, Kapi - haha!

OMG, I had forgotten about this.  Paul, your editing is terrific.  It doesn't look nearly as silly as it felt doing it!
Kapi in VT

It doesn't look silly?! Sheesh, that's the only reason I want to watch!

The PFs that used to nest along the coast not far from me - on rocks overlooking the Irish Sea - are no longer there due to continuous persecution from pigeon racers. BirdWatch mounted a 24-hour guard there at one time, but when financing was no longer available, the fate of the birds was inevitable.

PS... this isn't a joke, is it??

This I cannot wait to see! Gotta wind up Little Mac, tho - and that might not be til tomorrow! So don't go 'way, y'all!

That seems to be the problem all over, people running through the RED light. This is why I wait a second or 2 before I go. Yeah, I get beeped at from the car behind me but I avoided being hit numerous times because I wait. It turns Amber for a reason. 

As I now tell the grown-up nieces and nephews, I am a member of the "Let 'em Beep School of Motoring". Ireland, sadly, is not dissimilar, where they seem to think that the red and amber lights are optional. On a lighter note, the saying here is that the Irish do not actually park their cars... they simply abandon them. And I am convinced that if I ever get into an accident State-side, it will be in the parking lot of a big supermarket or mall, where no rules seem to apply - the Diagonal Approach seems to be a favourite...

I forgot all about the Legendary Orville... who gave "him" that name? Fun to remember...

Yo, Donna-Girl! Good pix and captions... as always! Ta!

Slainte!