Friday 21st March 2025, 2.55pm (day 4,957)
“Who you calling a Liver Bird? I ain’t no Liver Bird. Call me that again and I will eat your chips.”
Scouse seagull
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: nature
Waiting for lunch
Tuesday 18th March 2025, 1.00pm (day 4,954)
There seem to be a lot of sparrows in Gibraltar, and many of them have acquired the habit of hanging around restaurants and cafés: which seems a reasonable evolutionary adaptation to me. On Sunday I went into one place that had an entire flock of them seemingly living inside the building. Here, we are outside, but nevertheless, this chap looks quite content with his lot. All three of us — me, the bird, and the guy behind — were waiting for our lunch.
Barbary macaque
Sunday 16th March 2025, 10.50am (day 4,952)
The Barbary macaques which live in Gibraltar are the only wild primates living in Europe. They’re doing well enough — there are around 300 living on The Rock, a healthy population considering that during World War 2 numbers were down to single figures. I thoroughly enjoyed my encounters with them today, particularly the troop that lived around the mid-height pylon for the cable car, which they treated as just a big metal tree, clambering up it and then sliding back down the struts, seemingly just for the fun of it.
Daffodil patch by Oxford Road
Thursday 13th March 2025, 9.35am (day 4,949)
This big patch of daffs is coming into flower rather later than many others in the vicinity, but some confident early adopters have made a start on it. Actually I like this picture more for the bark of the tree, which looks very ancient and Ent-like. This is all in the middle of the UoM campus, not a space normally renowned for feeling rural.
Pigeon mobilisation
Friday 7th March 2025, 3.00pm (day 4,943)
Whatever it is that pigeons do to communicate the information that it is time for a collective take-off, they do it well enough, and quite frequently, too. They will then fly around for a couple of circuits, come back to land (or roof) again, and wait a few minutes before doing it all again. Perhaps it’s just training.
First buds of spring
Thursday 6th March 2025, 1.45pm (day 4,942)
A definite First Day of Spring. The buds on the apple tree anticipated it, however. Well, we call it a ‘tree’ but it’s more like a kind of skein of branches that wrap themselves around some vaguely solid thing that might or might not be a trunk. More like vines, almost. Either way, the apples should be along in a few months’ time.
Crocuses
Saturday 1st March 2025, 12.35pm (day 4,937)
Crocuses are an annual marker, coming out at the same time each year. This being the case they work as a marker of Joe’s birthday, which is on Tuesday. Each year I remember 2003, which had a very warm first few days of March, spent mostly in Calderdale Royal Hospital while we waited (and Clare pushed, for days) for him to make his appearance. Crocuses were coming up everywhere then, and here are more, 22 years later.
Bird and stonework
Sunday 9th February 2025, 11:05am (day 4,917)
C said she liked both the bird (‘magnificent’, she put it) and the stonework. I, myself, can see no other reasons to like the shot. So these things will do as a title.
Cobweb and fingers
Monday 27th January 2025, 6.05pm (day 4,904)
Yep, still here. And for another 48 hours, at least. This shot pleases me, though. The third one in a row to depict a creature in some kind of repose, but that is how I feel right now.
Stoicism
Sunday 26th January 2025, 2.20pm (day 4,903)
There are worse places to be stuck, that is true. And I’ve not been turfed out of my accommodation, I’m not running out of money, and so on. But this has now become my life’s longest-ever flight delay, or indeed travel delay of any kind, and I may not even be halfway through it yet. I am trying to develop a stoic outlook on life — as this guy appears to have done.
Being 42 