A Walk in the Park

Photo: Jo Goldsworthy – Hampstead Heath
‘My walk back from the Ladies' Pond the other day before breakfast. Frosty and beautiful’


Photo: Russell Savory – Cornwall
Barn Owl perched whilst hunting

Exciting find - Picasso vase discovered in the Tamar Valley - Cornwall

Photo: Paul Keen – Edition Picasso  Madura

The vase has been identified as Chouetton (owl) part of the Plein Fue series produced at the Madura Works Southern France in 1952   The vase is painted and glazed on white earthenware and measures 26cm high.

In 1946 Picasso met the owners of the Madura Works who gave him access to tools and materials he required for ceramic design. Madura then produced and then sold his work in a collaboration lasting 25 years.

A charming little bird–South West of England

Photo: Western Morning News

The cirl bunting, a sparrow-sized bird found in south west England, has seen a remarkable turnaround in its fortunes in the past quarter of a century, with breeding numbers rising from little over 100 pairs 25 years ago to 1,078 pairs in 2016.

The boost to numbers comes after a 25-year project by the RSPB and local farmers in the area where the bird is found to help manage land in a way that supports cirl buntings, ensuring they have year-round food supplies and habitat.

Wildlife experts said the decline in the birds to a low of 118 pairs in 1989 was probably down to changes in farming practices, including a switch to autumn-sown cereals, increased pesticide use and removing hedges to create larger fields. The changes led to a loss of food sources and nesting sites for the birds, which forage in weedy stubble fields in winter and nest in hedges or scrub in the summer, when they rely on natural grassland full of insects such as grasshoppers for food.

The RSPB worked with farmers to help them take advantage of wildlife-friendly farming funding schemes, in which they receive payments for implementing measures to help cirl buntings.
These include growing spring barley, which after the harvest is left as weedy stubble to provide seed the cirl buntings can eat during the winter, and planting margins of grassland along field edges to provide insects and spiders for summer food.

While the bird is still mostly confined to Devon, a reintroduction scheme in Cornwall has established a population in the county which now 65 breeding pairs, according to the most recent survey.
Other species are also likely to see a boost from the measures implemented by farmers, with linnets, skylarks and yellowhammers all benefiting from winter stubble food and brown hares, horseshoe bats and rare plants seen again in fields, the RSPB said.

The unploughed stubble field has become a feature of the farmed landscape in Devon and Cornwall in recent years – thanks to environmental support payments that encourage farmers to leave cereal fields until the spring, to help over-wintering seed eating birds.

The Big Moon - a once in a lifetime event!

Photo: reuters/Rebecca Naden
The moon rises near Glastonbury Tor a day before the "supermoon" spectacle, in Glastonbury, Britain, 13 Nov. 2016
Photo: Andrew Fusek Peters  Moon rising in Shropshire 14 Nov. 2016

Photo: reuters/Yagiz Karahan
The Big Moon is seen over the historical Galata Tower in Istanbul, Turkey, 14 Nov. 2016

‘Supermoon’ became a term thanks to an astrologer in the 1970s!  It refers to a full moon that is at perigee, or at its closest position to Earth along its orbit.
The moon is typically about 238,900 miles,away from Earth, but was about 221,524 miles away from Earth this week.

The moon will not look as large as it does on Monday until 2034 and the last time it was this big was in January 1948.

Blue Mountain Union News: When Australia said ‘NO’ to conscription

          Hall Greenland, Mark Gregory, Drew Cottle,  Rowan Cahill, Colleen Burke

Peace activists gathered at Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville last week to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the defeat of the WWI conscription referendum. Two referendums took place under the Prime Ministership of Billy Hughes, the first one in October 1916 and then again in December 1917—both referendums were successfully defeated by the growing Anti-Conscription Movement.

Hannah Middleton, a lifelong peace activist, said it was important to remember the carnage of WWI in order to understand current worldwide conflicts.
“The loss of life in WWI is an exemplar of just how appalling war is. We should have reached a stage of civilisation in how we resolve matters in other ways. Humanity is precious and we see the destruction of thousands upon thousands of young men, again and again, just for a few yards.     “And as we say it about WWI, about Passchendaele and Ypres, we have to say it about Syria.”

 http://bmuc.blogspot.com.au