Tuesday 9 February 2010

Chinese tops the list

There's been a new survey on the nation's favourite food and it appears that Chinese has now over taken Indian with our own "British" coming third and Italian fourth.

We has some rice left over from a Chinese yesterday and rather than re-heat it today I donated to the birds. As if to emphasise the survey a group of Black-headed Gulls were straight down to finish it off, with out the mandatory chop sticks!

I did get a new garden year tick today when this Grey Wagtail popped in. It didn't turn round for a better picture before it went out of view, and I didn't see it again. In previous years they have been regular so I hope it will be back.

At Christmas my daughter-in-law asked me what I knew about James Audubon and did I have any books about him. I was surprised that when I looked in my library I didn't in fact have any of his books and none of the biographies that have been written about him. Considering what a towering figure he is in both American and World ornithology I thought I have a look around to see if I could fill that gap. As luck would have I found a rather nice, small and inexpensive book of some of his paintings. I have never been a great fan, some of the poses he paints birds in are rather strange but they do have a compelling fascination all the same.

There was also a fairly recent biography, that I'm reading at the moment, and it goes a long way in explaining his art style. I've a long way to go to finish the book, but I'm a slow reader nowadays, it's always difficult when you nod off when you sit down!

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