"Dave Morrison, lifelong Londoner and peregrine obsessive, focuses his telescope onto the tower."

Sounds like Dave would fit in perfectly with this group!  Although, I'm not quite sure what a barking boy is.   

What a great article.

Barking = one of the boroughs of London. (Like saying he is a Webster boy... Irondequoit boy...)

American English versus English English. Two countries separated by a common language. 


... Reminds me of asking Shaky something when I used the term "blinking"... a softer form of a "bold word" (wash your mouth out!) - and he could not figure out why something was "literally" blinking...

Slainte!

Bobbie

Thanks, Donna - good link. Don't worry, tho - I won't steal your source material!

Slainte!

Bobbie

Good post re London PFs, Donna - where did you see that? I did not see it on the BBC this morning... Thanks for other posts too...

[Woman who binned cat baffled by 'overreaction']

This morning's update on the cat...


Woman who binned cat baffled by 'overreaction'
? 
A woman who enraged animal lovers across the world by dumping a cat in a wheelie bin said today she “thought it would be funny�.

Mary Bale told The Sun that she binned the feline as “a joke�, adding: “It’s only a cat.�

The 45-year-old sparked an angry online campaign after being caught on CCTV throwing the pet into a large green rubbish bin in the Stoke area of Coventry.

Tabby Lola was trapped for 15 hours after being picked up by the scruff on the neck and dumped in the container. The four-year-old emerged unscathed but footage of the incident, posted on social networking site Facebook, provoked angry reactions.

Hundreds of people joined groups on the site... and many have posted threatening messages about the woman depicted in the CCTV. The footage also led to an ongoing RSPCA investigation.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, the woman said people were “overreacting�. She said: “I really don’t see what everyone is getting so excited about – it’s just a cat.�

Ms Bale explained to the newspaper that she noticed the cat as she was walking home from work and began stroking it. “I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin which was right beside me. I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny. I never thought it would be trapped. I expected it to wriggle free.�

Ms Bale admitted that she “shouldn’t have done it� but added that she did not deserve the hatred of people around the world.

Lola’s owner Stephanie Mann yesterday appealed for calm and urged people not to take “matters into their own hands�.

The 24-year-old cat lover said: “I can’t believe the reaction to the story. I only posted it on Facebook because I wanted to see who she was. Now that the police know who she is, I think people should leave it to them and the RSPCA and not take matters into their own hands."

Last night, West Midlands Police said Ms Bale had not committed a criminal offence. A spokesman said: “The RSPCA is leading an investigation into the incident and will be interviewing the woman shortly. Coventry police are supporting the society’s investigation and would urge the public to leave the matter to be dealt with in the appropriate manner by the authorities."

The force said the woman was not being given police protection and community support officers were outside her address monitoring a large group of people for “public order purposes as per routine police procedure�.

[Inquiry after CCTV shows woman dumping cat in wheelie bin]

What beautiful markings on Lola! As for the woman...

Ya think?! No kidding... when the film came up on the TV, I was thinking it was the woman who was rescuing the cat! She is now, obviously, very much non grata, as the RSPCA is "urging the public to leave the matter to the authorities". Serves the old bag right!

Here's the latest from the BBC website... can you believe she is not facing criminal charges?!

____

Inquiry after CCTV shows woman dumping cat in wheelie bin

An inquiry is under way after a cat owner in Coventry captured CCTV images of a woman dumping his cat into a wheelie bin. Lola, a four-year-old tabby, was discovered 15 hours later by owner Darryl Mann after he heard her cries. He then checked his CCTV cameras and saw footage of the woman first stroking the cat and then taking her by the scruff and throwing her in the bin.

The RSPCA has said it will be speaking to the woman, who has been identified.

"I don't know how someone could do it to such a defenceless animal,� Darryl Man, cat owner
Mr Mann, 26, of Brays Lane, said he had not noticed that Lola had been missing.

"She is a night cat. We sometimes don't see her in the day unless she comes in for food," he said.
He said he had been going out to his car on Sunday morning when he heard a cat meowing. "I thought at first she was under the car. But then I found her in the bin," he said.

He later checked his CCTV, which he installed to boost security, to see how Lola had got in there.

"I thought she might have got in herself. She's not the brightest cat," he said. "It's disgusting, she's a lovely cat... she'd never hurt anyone."

'Not criminal offence'

"I don't know how someone could do it to such a defenceless animal. Obviously, we had to go through a good few hours of video footage, but... within a couple of hours we had it on the internet."

West Midlands police said they got a call on Sunday evening to report what had happened. They said they were supporting the RSPCA investigation and urged the public to leave the matter to the authorities.

"Coventry police have not arrested the woman because she has not committed a criminal offence," the force said.

The RSPCA said it was leading the investigation and would be talking to the woman shortly.

[RSPCA to interview Coventry cat CCTV woman]

RSPCA to interview Coventry cat CCTV woman


A woman featured in CCTV footage putting a cat in a bin in Coventry has been identified. The RSPCA are leading an investigation into the incident.

West Midlands Police are supporting the investigation and have urged the public to leave the matter to the authorities.


This should be the video link... I am not sure, tho, as my computer sometimes has seizures...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11071277

The thing is, tho - this film does not show your average bozo, but a middle-aged, middle-class woman to be responsible for dumping the cat. Books? Covers?!

This was posted on the Cayuga Birdlist yesterday...wonder if one of the juvenile Peregrines seen was Jemison.
Suzanne


A good amount of reshuffling occurred several times when two juvenile PEREGRINE FALCONS decided to team up and hunt shorebirds in flight. While most birds were in the air, two mostly basic-plumaged adult HUDSONIAN GODWITS joined the rest of the flying birds. They landed out with the dowitchers for a while, then on the mud in the next pond over, then were flushed by the Peregrines (ultimately joined by a third juvenile Peregrine) and disappeared. While we were scanning, I heard a WHIMBREL call twice not far off, but I was never able to locate it.  It may have been flying by or it may have been in the taller vegetation, but in any case, keep an eye out for it in the area.

VERY exciting! Thanks for that, HC!

["Poppy kok" to my "Happy Kak!"]

Wha-hey, Donna! A "Happy Kak"! This has to become part of Forum Parlance!

Slainte!

Bobbie

Wha-hey you say Bobbie! I guess it's "Poppy kok" to my "Happy Kak!"

E-nuff, already! I got work to do here!

Wha-hey, Donna! A "Happy Kak"! This has to become part of Forum Parlance!

Slainte!

Bobbie

I got to laughing, as these little owl brothers reminded of another pair of best-beloveds in my life... two nephews, now grown to fine, strong young men, but who, as "fledglings", had their moments...

They were aged around 3 and 7 at the time. 7-year-old watches younger brother toddle around a room packed full of people. Toddler makes his way around a few times, while 7-year-old sits on a kitchen chair and observes the progress. I watch the 7-yr-old, and I can see that little mind going clickety-clickety-click. Finally, it happens. The 3-yr-old starts down the room again. Then, quick as a flash - Whoosh! - 7-yr-old sticks his leg out straight. And Whap! Down goes the little guy.

I had to leave the room...

For anyone who has not accessed it, Bob Marcotte's blog in the D&C is probably the only reason for buying the paper... or not, as it's online! (Save a tree, y'all!)

Your post sent a little thrill/chill through me, Donna. "Tree of Hope" - excellent!

I would SO love to see a burrowing owl! Guess I better head for the desert first...

(... almost typed "borrowing" and "dessert" there... what an image!)

As Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, wrote:

So fare thee weel, my only Luve
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Dear,
Tho’ 'twere ten thousand mile.

Seems appropriate as we say good bye... especially to that magnificent Lady of Lowes...

[Anne Frank tree toppled by high winds and rain]

I am sure we all remember Anne writing about this tree, the only piece of nature she could see from her attic. This is a bit OT too, but still worth a thought for the things it saw throughout its long and venerable life.


Anne Frank tree toppled by high winds and rain

The 150-year-old horse chestnut that brought comfort to Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis in World War Two has toppled in high winds and heavy rain.

The tree, whose trunk was diseased and rotten, snapped a metre (3ft) above the ground, and crashed into neighbouring gardens in Amsterdam.It smashed into a brick wall and sheds, but nobody was reported injured. The Anne Frank House museum, which has a million visitors a year, also escaped unscathed during Monday's poor weather.

"Someone yelled: 'It's falling. The tree is falling,' and then you heard it go down," museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart told the Associated Press. "Luckily no one was hurt."

"Unpleasantly surprised"
A global campaign to save "the Anne Frank tree" was launched in 2007 after Dutch officials and conservationists declared it a safety hazard and ordered it felled. They feared it could topple and crash into the museum.

But the Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation won a court injunction in November that year, stopping the city authorities from chopping it down. Neighbours and campaigners argued that, as a symbol of freedom, the tree was worth making extraordinary efforts to preserve.

But it was blighted with fungus and moths, and two years ago conservationists encased the trunk in steel girders to prop it up. The Netherlands' Trees Institute, a leading supporter of the project to save the tree, said it was "unpleasantly surprised" to hear it had fallen.

"On the advice of experts in tree care, it had been calculated that the tree could live several more decades" the institute said in a statement. "Alas, in the event it seems that nature is stronger."

The Jewish teenager referred several times to the tree in the diary that she kept during the 25 months she remained in hiding.

Anne Frank wrote on 23 February 1944: "From my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind."

She died, aged 15, the following year in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.