Avian Murder: Survivor

I told you, in the previous post, the brutal story of infanticide carried out by a house sparrow upon a great tit nestling. And that we were left not knowing if any siblings had survived.

Well. The parent birds did not leave the area. They were still feeding something, somewhere. We became convinced that at least one chick was out of the nest-hole and somewhere in the yard. We began to hear the piping sounds of a tit chick. Thought perhaps - two, but to this day still do not know for sure.
A day or so after the killing of the first great tit nestling, I was watering the garden when I became aware that I was staring at a very young tit-chick, gape-beaked, unkempt, staring back at me from the concrete surround of a drain hole near the bushy undergrowth of a partly collapsed clematis. (That kind of garden). One survivor. I kept telling it to get under cover but it didn't listen.

Next day. And a strikingly similar baby bird was some five metres away in the herbage bordering our broken down decking. (That kind of garden.) Always the great tit adults were hunting food, dropping down to feed it and keeping close watch. Later that day there was no baby on the decking but I think I heard tit-piping from the hawthorn trees above.

So. We think at least one baby bird survived and flew. Not the nest exactly... but life on the streets so to speak. I am marveling at the vigilance and tough determination of its parents who must have got the nestling out of the nesting-hole somehow and, across several days, got it to travel some seven metres or so, still feeding, defending and moving it whenever they knew it had been spotted (by us.) And let me say, that chick must have had some stubborn, brave streak too.

But what seemed very odd to me, in retrospect, was that the sparrows gave up interest once the nest was emptied. They didn't pursue the survivor (or possibly - survivors) even though they were still hiding in the same yard. The sparrows wanted them out of that nest-hole in "their" territory at all costs. Finito.

Does this story ring a bell? Seems like it's a cruel, natural urge.
Survival tale.

Avian Murder In The Courtyard

It was a mystery. And the culprit was someone whom I least expected. The victim was a great tit chick. Almost fledged but found - by me - on the yard floor below the hole in the wall that is a great tit's nest. The crown of its head was bald of feathers and skin, clearly this was not a natural death.
I removed the little corpse and buried it, feeling sad because we had been watching the progress of the great tit family as much as we could and were waiting the fledging of the chicks. I tried to work out if the culprit could have been a rat. But if so, why not carry away and eat its catch? As well, I knew the entrance hole was too small for the usual suspects... poor old magpie or various members of the crow family. Whoever it was had either been disturbed or left its victim as a cruel display.

And deep in my heart I knew the unbelievable truth. For I had seen the head of a male sparrow protruding from this nest hole shortly before I found the corpse. There are sparrows nesting, as well, in the house corners on both sides of the yard. After the death I spotted other sparrows taking great interest, one standing on the edge of the hole. I chased them off from the wall.

At least one of the parent great tits is still around. We are not sure if there are still two on duty. The Old Man reported seeing a great tit doing some kind of aggression display-dance at the sparrows in the yard but I do not know if there are surviving chicks in the nest. Whatever happened and whether any of the brood have survived, I am very sad to witness this cold-blooded murder perpetrated by a neighbour - one about whom I can never feel quite the same.

The Doll Is Listening To - The Flames Of Hell

... her retro technology find of the vinyl kind.

The Old Man is hard at work washing the old 33s that I do find in Truro ... in the record shop in Pannier Market quite rightly called "Music Nostalgia".
I found some culture from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert but, setting my feet thumping and my own voice howling along, perhaps even more joyful is the find of Swamp Music Vol 1 - Les Flemmes d'Enfer aka Flames of Hell. Being a collection of Cajun - Zydeco music from Louisiana released on a German label around 1989.
You can get a flavour with this video over on YouTube.

Bang those feet on the floor...

My Retro Photography: Drawing A Veil Over It

Last week I got the strong urge to have an "instant" picture camera again... after seeing one being used on the telly recently.
I used to love my/Mrs D's Polaroid camera and I have had my share of modelling for its pictures, way back in the 1990s. But supplies of Polaroid instant film disappeared alongside Polaroid's final bankruptcy in 2008. I knew that plans had been afoot to resurrect the concept and technology but at that time it didn't include my particular camera model.

And of course I have a digital camera and do like it very much... including the camera in my ancient Nokia phone. (I specialise in out-of-date technology.) Where would this blog be without such a thing? But most of my digital photos remain on my pc or camera, I just never get round to printing them off and I do not think I am alone in this.

And so my little hands did quiver with desire to get themselves wrapped around a new equivalent, analogue instant camera. Perhaps a Lomo'Instant or a Fuji. There is something very special about the one-off, one-time-only magic of the Polaroid snap; not just an instant result, but an object in its own right. I love them. I just had to buy another camera. And that was when The Old Man did stay my hand and got me to check to see if I could now get film for my old Polaroid Image Spectra. And I can.

Impossible Project, the outfit that have spent some years resurrecting what they could of the Polaroid process, cameras and films...now do a film pack for my old camera. Times have changed, as have rules for Health & Safety, etc., so the chemicals are not the same nor the construction of each print module. Now, you only get 8 prints to a pack, they take longer to develop and they are more expensive. I ordered up a pack right away. But very stupidly... not from Impossible themselves. Daft girl.

When the pack arrived the very next day, it was stamped with a 2014 manufacture date. Well past its sell-by-date. Impossible recommends a 12month life for their films. And this is the explanation (I do hope) for my atmospheric results. Such as this image of an old man, looking very pleased, clutching a pot of iris.

Next time I shall buy from Impossible. And fervently hope that the image will develop properly and that any atmospheric veils are under my control. Because otherwise ... it is my beloved 25 year old camera that is in trouble.

Women With Knives Part 2: Lucia di Lammermoor

The Old Man and me sat ourselves down in our local cinema last week for the Royal Opera House broadcast of its new production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor".

I'm quite happy to see new interpretations of operas and this production has certainly caused controversy and do give a melodramatic deal of blood and savagery albeit perhaps not in the form anticipated. Director Katie Mitchell relocates it from Donizetti's Scotland of the 1700s to the mid-1800s by way of bringing the action closer to Donizetti's own era (she says in an interview on the ROH site) and because she views Lucia not as a young "victim" but as a mature, cultured woman... and the mid-1800s was a period filled with "brilliant [unmarried] women artists".
OK. But perhaps "pax" to earlier feminists such as Mary Wollstonecroft (1757-1797). Not to forget Wollstonecroft's daughter, Mary Shelley, who happened to beat the boys (Byron and husband Percy) at late-night horror stories by creating Frankenstein in 1816 and succeeded in publishing it, albeit anonymously, the year before Sir Walter Scott's own publication of his original "Bride of Lammermoor".

Mitchell's production has a split stage to enable a continuous line of action for Lucia. We see her dressing, reading letters, waking up in the morning, etc, regardless of whether she is part of the musical scenario, which takes place on the other half of the stage. Cinema-goers watching the live broadcast version with its close-ups and different points of view may not have been exposed to the full effect of this device. I do wonder if it proved distracting for the theatre audience, certainly in the case of the silent masque murder-scene which traditionally takes place off-stage. And what also troubled me about this scene was that it seemed to depart so much from the traditional view of poor innocent Lucia that I couldn't really make it lie down with the notion that she then proceeds to go mad... tout suite. Though I did enjoy the addition of Donizetti's originally scored glass harp accompaniment to Lucia's hallucinatory insanity. Certainly Diana Damrau as Lucia earns her keep and sings pretty lovely as well and we were both impressed by the acting and singing of Charles Castronova as Edgardo.

I enjoyed my night out at the opera thoroughly. In retrospect the production is device-heavy and overthought in its details... which don't always hang together. (But then Donizetti's own scenario doesn't leave much room to "explain" the sudden descent of madness onto poor Lucia's head). But I enjoyed the performances and if the director enabled some of these, then so be it. Ultimately, me and The Old Man were still arguing and discussing the whole thing a couple of days later which many would say was a mark of a good, meaty show. Or is it? Dunno ... but I'm glad I went.

Springtime: The Bird That Wants To Make A Phone Call

It's definitely spring. The Old Man and I get in the car to go walking .. as you do. A short drive to Penrose Estate and cars are decanting children, dogs, and walkers with sticks. The car park is packed and The Old Man do attract some attention trying to park in the last slot. His frustration at the current car do infuriate and defeat him, causing some outraged stares at an accidental horn beep. We give up and turn round to leave for another car park in Helston, at the lower end of the "trail". That's when I realise that quite some of the sniggering walkers are marshaling their sticks, children and dogs to walk out onto the road again and not into the wooded estate. So it dawns on me that they are parking up here to walk down to Porthleven for the Food Festival (sorry folks, last day today) which by all accounts has been packed out this year

But we manage our walk along the Cober and the woods of Penrose Estate. The first thing I see when I get out of the car ...  are swallows flying above the river. In the woods themselves birds are singing fit to bust: robins, wrens, blackbirds, chiffchaffs. Something more melodious. Blackcap? And then a song I don't know, probably some kind of warbler. I heard once that if you are trying to remember a bird's song then concentrate on catching the rhythmn and make up a phrase that echoes the rhythmn. So I do.
Definitely it's: "I gotta make a phone call, brrrr, brrrr."

I rushed (or hobbled) home and do try out the thing on the internet, starting with warbler songs. Maybe a reed warbler? But I am not convinced. So if anyone knows which bird sings "I gotta make a phone call, brrrr, brrrr." - I'd like help with the answer.

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of

I dream I am with The Old Man in this place where everyone, including the staff, is old. We sit at a dining table and the lady what takes our order is determined that I will eat ham... and I keep telling her that I don't eat ham. Suddenly a man of same sort of age, addressing us as if he is a security man, wheels on some hi-fi equipment. Truly 'orrible looking speakers with fake marble and stuff. He do play Rossini to us... and I do not like Rossini. Then the elderly waitress comes back with a colleague. She is still insisting that I ordered ham. Her colleague, of same age, do join in the discussion. Suddenly The Old Man do tell them how grateful we are for how well they did look after my mother and everybody starts crying. I wake up.

When I come down for breakfast in the morning... in real, daily life this is ... I do tell The Old Man my dream. And he answers that he too has had a dream. He dreams that he has tickets for the cinema and so he drives to the town and parks the car, apparently having left me behind at home. Then he realises that he has forgotten the tickets (and me). So he goes back to the car park but cannot remember where he left the car....

See the nightmares of Old Age? I am stuck in a home where I am fed stuff I don't want and made to listen to stuff I don't want to hear whilst The Old Man do go round and round forgetting everyone, everything, and every place. Mind you, it could all be a comment on the state of the nation.

Women With Knives: Iphigenie en Tauride at Hall for Cornwall

No... I don't mean cutlery when I write "women with knives"... but a long lost phrase in my head to do with plots in opera. The English Touring Opera production of "Iphigenie en Tauride" provides "women with knives" in spades ... and axes... with its opening scene of human sacrifice on the shores of Tauride. The orchestra plays an overture whilst ladies dressed in impressive butcher aprons of bloodied white subdue their struggling but unseen captive and wield knives and axes, draining blood into bowls and through grills and chopping up various bits (again unseen but inferred) and thrusting them into sacks. Members of the Truro audience were heard complaining about the gore in the ice cream queue during the interval. But... naturally... I thought they did it rather well.

I think if I had any complaints about the violence it would be the inaccuracy of the torture of Orestes's friend Pylades, whose suffering as mimed by his tormentors would have deprived him of enough body parts to prevent his participation in the rest of the opera. In the spirit of crime review I must say... "If you are gonna show violence... make it relevant. You went a little over the top there, boys." And in the main the violence of this production is relevant I think. Gluck based his opera on the play by Euripedes in which the saved sacrificial victim, Iphigenie, is made a priestess by her saviour Diana and as such doomed to sacrifice any foreigner who steps on to the shores of the tyrant king Thoas. What follows is a catalogue of family disaster, culminating in Iphigenie finding herself about to sacrifice her own brother, Orestes. Labelled a tragedy and a melodrama, the company's own programme notes point to the Euripedes work as an anti-war drama. And my word, seen from that point of view it do fit in with the spirit and geography of the times.

I can't praise English Touring Opera highly enough. This is the third year we have managed to see one of their productions. Their sets and designs are necessarily stripped down but work well  given that, with us, they manage just two consecutive night in the theatre with a different performance each evening. Well that's a triumph of packing if nothing else. But above all the performances are smooth, the productions brave and the singing and orchestral work are good. I have to single out Catherine Carby as Iphigenie in this one: warm and singing beautifully. If you live far from metropolitan delights and miss an evening at the opera... you must look out for ETO.
I just wish we got a sample from their autumn tour as well ... but we never do.