May 8, 1945

Victory in Europe or V.E. Day. Allied victory over Nazi Germany & now on to the Pacific to take care of the Jap.

Here's that picture of my grandmother and young uncle on Hanover Terrace Brighton England on VE day. The street had to poll their rations card together to get enough to make the cake.

Maybe Mark with his magic powers can make the picture larger this time.

If you take a better look at that picture you will notice that there are no men of fighting age in it and it's all women and children.

I put red markers on the grandmother and young Uncle in this picture.

May 9, 2022

This morning I was sitting on the deck of my estate enjoying a cup of coffee, cigar, & observing the abundant wildlife. It was a nice sunny morning with a temp of 60F. A large black crow was in flight & being bombarded by smaller birds. The crow must have been raiding nests of other birds as they are known to do & this thought passed through my brain. Black birds, black sheep, black clouds, black magic, black humor, black cats.............is there something evil about the color black? 

The rhetorical Tommy

May 9, 2022

This morning I was sitting on the deck of my estate enjoying a cup of coffee, cigar, & observing the abundant wildlife. It was a nice sunny morning with a temp of 60F. A large black crow was in flight & being bombarded by smaller birds. The crow must have been raiding nests of other birds as they are known to do & this thought passed through my brain. Black birds, black sheep, black clouds, black magic, black humor, black cats.............is there something evil about the color black? 

The rhetorical Tommy

Crows and even birds of prey are often mobbed in the air by smaller birds. They are seen as a threat regardless as to whether they're actually raiding nests or not. Over here, apart from the sparrowhawk, very few birds of prey are a danger to other birds in the air, hence the aerial mobbing we see, a different matter if the smaller birds are on the ground of course. 

Here's that picture of my grandmother and young uncle on Hanover Terrace Brighton England on VE day. The street had to poll their rations card together to get enough to make the cake.

Maybe Mark with his magic powers can make the picture larger this time.

It's quite big enough as it is thankyou.

May 9, 2022

This morning I was sitting on the deck of my estate enjoying a cup of coffee, cigar, & observing the abundant wildlife. It was a nice sunny morning with a temp of 60F. A large black crow was in flight & being bombarded by smaller birds. The crow must have been raiding nests of other birds as they are known to do & this thought passed through my brain. Black birds, black sheep, black clouds, black magic, black humor, black cats.............is there something evil about the color black? 

The rhetorical Tommy

Crows and even birds of prey are often mobbed in the air by smaller birds. They are seen as a threat regardless as to whether they're actually raiding nests or not. Over here, apart from the sparrowhawk, very few birds of prey are a danger to other birds in the air, hence the aerial mobbing we see, a different matter if the smaller birds are on the ground of course. 

Yes, & the smaller birds always attack from above. If the bird of prey has altitude over the smaller one...............curtains. I have red-tail hawks, harrier hawks, owls, & bald eagles all visiting my estate. Not to mention turkey vultures (buzzards) to act in clean up. Now I have humming birds & orioles at my feeders. 

Last seen just 500 ft from the top and seemingly going strong as they disappeared into the clouds.

May 9, 2022

This morning I was sitting on the deck of my estate enjoying a cup of coffee, cigar, & observing the abundant wildlife. It was a nice sunny morning with a temp of 60F. A large black crow was in flight & being bombarded by smaller birds. The crow must have been raiding nests of other birds as they are known to do & this thought passed through my brain. Black birds, black sheep, black clouds, black magic, black humor, black cats.............is there something evil about the color black? 

The rhetorical Tommy

Crows and even birds of prey are often mobbed in the air by smaller birds. They are seen as a threat regardless as to whether they're actually raiding nests or not. Over here, apart from the sparrowhawk, very few birds of prey are a danger to other birds in the air, hence the aerial mobbing we see, a different matter if the smaller birds are on the ground of course. 

Yes, & the smaller birds always attack from above. If the bird of prey has altitude over the smaller one...............curtains. I have red-tail hawks, harrier hawks, owls, & bald eagles all visiting my estate. Not to mention turkey vultures (buzzards) to act in clean up. Now I have humming birds & orioles at my feeders. 

The first time I saw Humming birds I was awe struck. We have Buzzards, which circle about high up all day. Apparently they do hunt but prefer the easy life of carrion. Talking of mobbing, I was up the lane with the dog at 6 this morning and the Lapwings were giving the Crows a hard time. We have an invasive species in the bird world that has made Britain its very successful home and that's the Collared Dove, an American import I believe. The first I ever saw was in the 60's, now they're everywhere. Due to the large amounts of various food I put out for the birds, we get quite a variety. Amongst the larger birds we get Crows, Magpies Jays and Wood Pigeons and they all battle but none of them dare square up to those doves, they're gangsters.

And yet they look so delicate and fragile, always seen in pairs. I'm extremely envious of Tommy and his hummingbirds, I still have difficulty in accepting that they flourish as far north as Canada, I expect them to live solely in hot steamy jungles. 

Collared Dove

10 May 1422 - The English captured Meaux. 600 years ago today.

The English King Henry V returned to France in June 1421 after the French showed signs of a resurgence in ousting the English. One town that Henry had failed to capture was Meaux east of Paris. 

He opened the siege in October but a harsh winter and disease in his camp seriously reduced his army until better weather in March allowed an assault which forced the defenders into the fortress while the town itself surrendered. Finally on 10 May the fortress submitted, the leader of the defenders, the Bastard of Vaurus was beheaded.

King Henry was one of those who fell ill with dysentery and malaria during the siege, he never fully recovered and died in August aged 35.   

December 26, 1862

The Dakota Hangings - After a war with U.S. forces the Dakota tribe of Minnesota surrendered. State officials had a trial of sorts & condemned 303 Indians to death by hanging. President Lincoln reviewed the findings & reduced that number to 39 (one was reprieved just before hanging). The trial was a sham for the most part with little or no evidence & in some cases lasting only minutes. A special gallows was built & the hangings took place on the above mentioned date with a crowd of 4,000 witnessing the gruesome event, some bringing picnic lunches & vendors selling goodies to the crowd. 

Presumably they supported the Confederates?

Presumably they supported the Confederates?

No, the reasons were they were restricted on reservation land that could not support them. Winter was upon them & the U.S. was involved in the Civil War so they took a chance by declaring war on Minnesota.

11 May 1222 - The Cyprus Earthquake. 800 years ago today.

Believed to be the strongest earthquake on the island in recorded history. Modern estimates rate it as 7.0-7.5 on the Richter Scale. It struck on the south west coast of Cyprus and caused a tsunami. Many thousands are thought to have died with the port of Paphos being the most badly affected. 

Here's that picture of my grandmother and young uncle on Hanover Terrace Brighton England on VE day. The street had to poll their rations card together to get enough to make the cake.

Maybe Mark with his magic powers can make the picture larger this time.

It's quite big enough as it is thankyou.

If it is big enough to you, tell us how many people can you count in the picture.

May 9, 2022

This morning I was sitting on the deck of my estate enjoying a cup of coffee, cigar, & observing the abundant wildlife. It was a nice sunny morning with a temp of 60F. A large black crow was in flight & being bombarded by smaller birds. The crow must have been raiding nests of other birds as they are known to do & this thought passed through my brain. Black birds, black sheep, black clouds, black magic, black humor, black cats.............is there something evil about the color black? 

The rhetorical Tommy

Only if you look in your rear view miror and see 4 southerners coming up fast behind you that have painted a new Mustang in matt black and the front hood has a large skull and cross bones on it. Now for sure you know that's evil coming.

And yet they look so delicate and fragile, always seen in pairs. I'm extremely envious of Tommy and his hummingbirds, I still have difficulty in accepting that they flourish as far north as Canada, I expect them to live solely in hot steamy jungles. 

Collared Dove

We usually have hummingbird feeders out when the flowers start coming out. We also got them at the cottage Mark which is a couple hundred miles further north and east of where I live. We would be sitting outside the cottage on deck chairs just watching the lake and ducks would come ashore and pick out the bread we but down for them on the beach.  Then all of a sudden a humming bird or two would show up at the feeders we had out for them and if you sat still they would come up and actually hover right in front of your face. They had beautiful colours which seemed to change colour depending which way the sun hit their feathers. If you had your eyes closed and they did it you would swear you had a bee bussing a round you.

Mourning Dove backyard.

American Gold Finch at back yard feeder. Can be very tame if they know your feeding them. A male on the left and a female on right. They like rape seed to eat but you can't call it that now.

A Male American Gold Finch

Grey Jay 

On winter exercises in New Brunswick if you held up a cracker from your ration pack they would land like this on your hand and eat take it. Very tame if you have food to offer. I would say pretty good eye sight also because they could spot a cracker from 25 feet away and seemed to know it was food.

 Of course we get the standard English Sparrows, Starlings and a lot of both Male and Female Robins in the spring.  Also had a Male and Female Cardinal at different times this spring. Haven't had any Blue Jays yet for some reason. This bird landed at one of the feeders at the cottage and had never seen one before, so I had to go on line to see what it was. It'a a Indigo Bunting and they usually aren't known to be as far north as the cottage. It must have been a male because the blue really stood out like this one.

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