Birds, Birds, and More Birds

We've been trying to make sure we get out every day over Christmas break. On the 27th we took a bus to the Fen Drayton RSPB nature reserve:

The full bird list: Blue tits, Wood pigeons, Crows, Magpies, Coots, Tufted ducks, Cormorants, Mute swans, Great Crested Grebes, Red Crested Pochards, Grey Heron, Gadwall, Great tits, Long-tailed tits, Robins, Song thrush, Graylag geese, Shoveler, Wigeons, Seagulls, Lapwings, Little Grebes.

On another outing recently we realized why the birds had stopped coming to visit us at our own bird feeder:

On Friday, we made a short visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum, where s. identified a Bulfinch in the "Bird Psalter" (ca. 1280):

 Later she ate a penguin:

Her take on the week's excursions is here:

And finally, a Christmas family photo:

Catching Up on The Weekly Songbird

S. has been publishing "all the household news" without fail for the last 24 weeks. Unbeknownst to her, the mail service was hit by a rotating strike, and we are now at least three weeks behind.

To catch up on the backlog, I am including issues 21-24 here, in reverse order. Click on the images for a larger, more readable view.

Issue 24 - Saturday, 22 December:

Issue 23 - Saturday, 15 December:

Issue 22 - Saturday, 8 December:

Issue 21 - Saturday, 1 December:

Wicken Fen

There is a series of cycle paths that could take us from Cambridge to Wicken Fen, but at 13 miles it is longer than any trip we have attempted, so we took advantage of the car to explore this closer-to-home nature reserve.

The highlight was the birds we saw at the first hide, including a reed bunting...

 And a close-up view of a European goldfinch and a chaffinch:

 The scenery was nice too:

 The tower hide had a nice view, but no birds at that time of day:

After five hours wandering around the site, we were tired enough, and ready for a relaxing drive home in our brand new rental vehicle:

Titchwell Marsh Nature Reserve

We rented a car over the weekend to go on a belated birthday outing for s. and a breather for t. On Saturday we drove to the Titchwell Marsh Nature Reserve on the Norfolk Coast:

 This photo brought to you by Wigeon and Teal, and Lapwing and Golden Plover, etc.

 Looking at a Marsh Harrier:

 Sadly, the birds don't show up as well in the pictures as the birders do, so here is a complete list of what (we think) we saw, including on the 1.5 hour drive to the nature reserve:

Comorants
Crows
Magpies
Seagulls at Waste Management
Dead fox
Starlings
Fox pie
Rook
Wood pigeon
Blackbird
Grey Heron
Great Tit
Chaffinch
Robin
European Gold Finch
Coot
Mallard
Moorhens
Shellducks
Goosander
Geese (the brown kind)
Lapwings
Brent Goose
Godwit
Wigeon
Pink-footed Goose
Golden Plover
Teal
Redshank
Common Snipe or Bittern or Curlew
Little Egret
Oystercatcher
Great Egret (?) (or Little Egret at a distance)
Pheasant (male and female)
Blue Tit
Coal Tit
Green Finch
Marsh Harrier
Kestrel
Gadwall
Wimbrel

Dublin Day 4: Glendalough

After church in Kill o' the Grange, which apparently doesn't mean what it sounds like, our hosts drove us out to Glendalough:

"Glendalough is home to one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland. This early Christian monastic settlement was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and from this developed the “Monastic City”. Most of the buildings that survive today date from the 10th through 12th centuries. Despite attacks by Vikings over the years, Glendalough thrived as one of Ireland’s great ecclesiastical foundations and schools of learning until the Normans destroyed the monastery in 1214 A.D." - Some Website 

According to Lonely Planet, Glendalough is "one of the most beautiful corners of the whole country and the epitome of the kind of rugged, romantic Ireland that probably drew you to the island in the first place." Even though it wasn't what drew us to the island, we were glad for the visit even with all the other people there:

Inside the Cathedral:

According to the sign, the Cathedral "is the largest church in Glendalough, and one of the largest known early Christian churches in Ireland."

When we were done with the monastic city, we took a walk in the park:

The Upper Lake toward Van Diemen's Land, but not the one in Australia:

It's a pretty place.

 

Dublin Day 3: In and around Monkstown

On the morning of day 3 I was violently sick, so s. and t. walked by themselves past Monkstown Castle ...

... to Dún Laoghaire Pier, where they saw sea lions:

By the afternoon I was well enough to tag along with our host family up Killiney Hill:

 North toward Dublin Bay:

The view south:

Dublin Day 2: Two Old Libraries (and the Book of Kells)

Six weeks after we left for Dublin, I am finally getting around to a hasty report on the rest of our trip. Here is a link to day 1. On Friday, day 2, we did what we came for ...

... with at least one attentive person in the audience:

After rich conversation over lunch in the TCD Dining Hall--and, for one of our company, a humongous slice of rich chocolate cake--we made our way to the Book of Kells exhibit and Trinity College Dublin's Old Library. Pictures are not permitted in the Book of Kells exhibit, so you will have to take my word for it when I say the open pages on display from the Book of Kells were beautiful, and seeing them in person was neat. (You can view high quality digital images from the Book of Kells here.) Because the actual Book of Kells and other medieval Latin Bibles are housed in a highly-secure vault, most of the exhibit consisted of enormous reproductions. Very nice, but we didn't linger.

Even more awe-inspiring, for us libraryphiles, was the Long Room of Trinity College Dublin's Old Library, which is routinely included in lists of the world's most beautiful libraries. Since I didn't bring my camera, I will point you to professional photographs online here, but these pictures, taken with our cell phone camera prove that we were actually there:

A Latin Bible in the Old Library with an illustration from the book of Tobit:

The Trinity College Library was founded with the university in 1592, but the building itself was constructed between 1712-1732, which makes it only the second-oldest library building in Dublin.  

So we hiked across town by way of Christ Church cathedral ...

and St. Patrick's Cathedral ...

to Marsh's Library, which opened its doors in 1707:

One of the attractions of the library is that it looks very much like it did in the early 18th century. Here's how the library website puts it:

"Designed by Sir William Robinson (d.1712) the Surveyor General of Ireland, it is one of the very few 18th century buildings left in Dublin that is still being used for its original purpose. Many of the collections in the Library are still kept on the shelves allocated to them by Marsh and by Elias Bouhéreau, the first librarian, when the Library was opened. ... The interior of the library with its beautiful dark oak bookcases has remained largely unchanged since it was built three hundred years ago. It is a magnificent example of a late Renaissance and early Enlightenment library."

We were told that Narcissus Marsh, the former provost of Trinity College Dublin, founded the library because he disliked having to supervise students at Trinity College who wanted to access its library holdings. Marsh's library was Europe's second "public" library, and Ireland's first. "Public", of course, meant gentlemen and scholars. Even then it was not a lending library. Because of problems with theft, readers were locked into gated cubicles, and had to ring a bell to be let out:

Now, happily, the library is open to women and children too.