Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Ulysses, Bloomsday and baby woodpeckers

This being Bloomsday, I read  Ulysses far as I could, now north of 90%, before declaring it done for the year.



And a flutter past my head happened-- the baby woodpecker was back. Solo this time, and with new skillz. Once again he started to slide down the pole, but this time used his new tail feathers as a brake, climbed right back up again.






And see how he's figured out how to use his tail to grip, while he finds his own suet. He was within a few feet of me, possibly too young to be alert around a human, or maybe he'd seen older birds unworried and feeding near me. He's clearly feeding himself independently, no need for parent to help. 

Birds develop at warp speed. I've seen it often, but never get used to the marvel of it.



And my carpenter bees were busily pollinating the lavender. Telling me it's not all about drilling my fence.

7 comments:

  1. Lovely photos. Glad you fence is safe for a while.

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    1. Late summer it will be replaced. The squirrels have eaten a lot of it, big scallops chewed out of my gate. The new material won't be as appealing, no fungi, but it won't rot and collapse like wood. And I won't be able to attach anything to it, a loss there.

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  2. Had to look up Bloomsday. I'd never heard of it. I asked the husband who has family in Dublin and he also had never heard of it. Goodness. Anyway no celebration would get me to read Ulysses again. It was ruined for me by the school system many years ago.

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    1. Like Shakespeare for many people. Introduced prematurely, a disaster. I think they should stop at Dubliners, great writing but manageable and accessible for students.

      The fact is that you can't really grasp greatness by having bits of classics forced on you. Especially for limited times.

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    2. Shakespeare wasn't that bad as we had a school program where we saw live productions at the Stratford Festival here in Ontario. It was done by way of matinees for students only. Seeing it done on stage and then studying in school later was the best.

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  3. I've been to the Stratford festival. Good to introduce Shakespeare as a performance, as designed, rather than stuff to memorize.

    Also went on a school trip to the Stratford in the UK to see Shakespeare performed.

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  4. Baby woodpecker - lucky you to have a front row seat to his learning life skills. I'm afraid Shakespeare never impressed me much but I expect seeing stage performances might have helped fan my interest.

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