Hummingbirds

FEATHERY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY


Psychedelic


Colourful ...


... and cute


With precision beaks that suck nectar from flowers...


... they fly amazingly; but look just as good perching.

WISHING Y'ALL A CHIRPY WEEKEND!

Tiny Tits

Feathery Friday on Saturday


Bluetits are the most beautiful garden birds in Britain...


and are known as far away as China


where the agile fluttering featheries are called the 蓝山雀 lán shānquè


"the blue mountain bird"



Wishing y'all a very
CHIRPY WEEKEND!

Canary Craving

I'VE JUST COME OUT OF THE DRUGGIECLINIC where the local petshop is now selling brown-and-yellow varigated canaries for fourteen pounds each. Considering I have a large convertable hammy cage which with the removal of shelves and addition of perches would make an ideal home for Mr Chirper (see I've named him already: bad move!)... I'm highly tempted. I love songbirds. So to have one chirping its head off at top volume in my own home would be the most amazing thing. I know they're not the calmest of feathered critters, but I'd also really like to make mine hand-tame... Does anyone see any reason I shouldn't buy one? The shop's right round the corner. I have the dosh on me. I'm very tempted.

I just had a long talk with my Drugs Worker. I'm going to change her name from Buta to Duta. Buta, you see, means "pig" and she isn't a pig. She was just in a bad mood with me for coming in depressed to the point of zombification. Which I understand is going to be interpreted in a certain way in a drugs clinic.

The staff behind the counter couldn't believe it was me. The fact they remember me even though I've only had two appointments in the past month says something. I was a walking trainwreck. Or more to the point a haystack. Complete with scurrying creepy crawlies when you lifted the straw!

Duta was well impressed with my new look. She said I'm like a ray of sunshine. I get treated totally differently in shops. People I don't know talk to me on the street. Occasionally I catch someone gazing in my direction and think "what are you looking at, fucker?" then I remember how fantastic I look and my bad mood turns to good.

I said I was going to make an effort with Duta, didn't I? The effort has paid off. It woudln't surprise me if news of my distraught phone call to the manager got back to her. I think the effort now is mutual. We get on OK. And like the lady said, Duta is a nice person. We just failed spectacularly to hit it off on our first two sessions...

I woke up at 2 in the morning and couldn't sleep so I did a spot of cleaning, then I washed my hair. My fingernails were permanently dirty up until Sunday - with muck from my mucky old hair. Now they're perfectly clean. I can now wash my hair in two minutes flat. Wet it looks a pale lemon yellow colour. The new style dries off completely within 5 minutes. I absolutely hated having straggling long dirty dreary drippy hair. I hate long hair on men. I only let mine get that way due to a total lack of self esteem. Do you understand what I'm saying now when I say I just wanted to curl up and die? I had no interest in any aspect of life whatsoever, bar heroin. Yes I liked hamsters. Yes I posted music I liked. But without grains in my veins all this was meaningless to me and a lot of the time I really was depressed enough for life to feel vastly empty and utterly meaningless. The new meaning comes from me. By the grace of God I put it there by loving myself. The meaning of life is the energy of life. God is energy. God is love. God is the meaning of life.

Now I've got to go and daydream about little birdies...

£10.20

I SPENT £10.20 on a pink and yellow bouncy ball and a bag of heroin. I got far more value out of the bouncy ball, which is fluorescent and bounces at least 20 feet high if you really slam it into the ground.

I was sat so still on the bench that the little birdies came up to me. A tiny flock of sparrows went for a sway in the bushes. Then one thrummed across the road and sat in the eves of a house.

A blackbird with a beakfull of worms ran right to my feet, then scurried off. A pair of bluetits came too.

Then my drug dealer phoned to say he was outside the local pub. I met him quickly and pinged home. The gear went cloudy in the works and I had to inject in the side of my right hand, just down from the little finger. My hand hurts a bit, but I got something of a high, so who cares.

I think the 20p bouncy ball and the birdies cheered me up more than the heroin ever could. Before them, my mind was fixated on the usual theme of these days: euthanasia, death penalty for heroin addicts, and suicide.

Anna Grace has gone straight back on the gear, right after spending four days of torment detoxing cold off the last lot. I know why she went back to it. Life seems terrifyingly bleak and empty without opiates. You wish you had never been born. The only remedy that seems viable is suicide ~ or to go back on opiates until death takes you anyhow.

I'm thinking of reaffirming my old "till death do us part~" commitment to heroin. Narcotics Anonymous say you must be willing to make any sacrifice in order to stay clean. Even if it means losing an arm, you must do it. I've been willing to commit everything to heroin in the past. If I could turn it around and commit everything to sobriety, I might succeed. And seeing as I break every resolution I've ever made (especially regarding my drug addiction) I think I should resolve most definitely to go on using until I die. Then I might break it by cleaning up. That's the only positive way I can phrase the actions of today.

Well I've got to go. I'm out of money now, so no cup a soup, no croutons, no corned beef. Just Greek pasty-shaped baps with cheese baked in the inside (2 at 50p each). And Mr Dippy 59p hummous. So I got dinner today for £1.59.

My weight has gone down to 13 stone 7 and 3/4lbs. Which works out at 190 lbs, meaning I've only lost 11 lbs in over a month! I'm going to really have to make this diet of mine more drastic still. And those antipsychotics are going to make me put on EVEN MORE weight. I keep getting Radio GaGa. Eg when I came home at midday my head was tuned into the Nonsense Channel. It was starting to irritate me.

I'm not happy with all the death talk in my recent blog; but that's what I've been thinking about.

I did get advised to go down the park, and I did go and got entertained by the tiny birdies trotting around the bushes. So that's one good thing.

I hope you all had a passable weekend XXXXXXX

Rainbow Lorikeets

FEATHERY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY

Rainbow lorikeets are my some of my favourite birds


My Anglo-Aussie friend Bimbimbie has flocks of them in her back garden...
Bimbimbie means "Birdsville" in a mysterious Aboriginal tongue near Brisbane where Bimbs's amazing garden is ...

And don't they look wonderful in the shrubbery. This is from my other Aussie friend Baino's garden....

This is a baby rainbow lorie. Isn't he/she gorgeous..?!?

Don't they look amazing in flight..!!

WISHING Y'ALL A WONDROUS WEEKEND
AND IF IT CAN'T BE WONDROUS MAY IT BE CHARMING
IF IT CAN'T BE CHARMING THEN MAY IT BE TOLERABLE..!

Flight of the Blue Tits

DOES ANY OF MY WRITING ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE? Or is it just me reading it back wonky? It seems to be all biddybangingbong: all over the place. I don't judge other people's writing as good or bad; I just read it. Also, my attention span is all over the place. I'm having a bash at reading a fictionalized biog later on; it's in short sections with rotating perspective (ie one person speaks, then another does, so it's easier to stick with). I need to get my attention span back.

And what was I on about earlier? Akh, I was a bit hyper. I was playing the music you see in youtube screens below today's earlier post which brought back memories of love doves and mitsubishi ecstasy. My mood was up so the music took me higher into full-blown "euphoric recall". It was more than the tingly neck you get from dance music once you get into it, it was a reliving of the E-state. I think that's why I'm now called "bipolar".

Akh, how did me and words like bipolar and schizophrenia ever get together? I always knew there was something wrong and that it wasn't plain depression. Those nauseatingly repeated dsm diagnostic criteria that pop up whenever you google "depression" somehow never described me even when I felt hopeless and suicidal. Partly this was depression deluding me, partly it was having got so used to being in a negative mind-state I couldn't see the positive one required to make sense of diagnostic criteria.

I fit the manic ones far more easily than the depressed ones. Ukh. Me? Manic?? A maniac is a crazy person and crazy people are Somebody Else.

I have been trying to read up on my medical condition because apart from knowing what it is I didn't know anything about it. Now I know a little bit about it. The European and American versions of schizoaffective differ. I have the European version that is, in the language of psychiatrists, mood episodes with mood-incongruent psychotic features. I also do have symptoms of schizophrenia but didn't even know it. I never delved into schizophrenia before: you can't know if you've got it. Stuff like obsessive-compulsive or bipolar you could know about because the patterns are really clear. Schizophrenia just feels like extreme dissociation with everything taking huge effort, even simple things. That's schizophrenia. That's why schizophrenics seem lazy, they're actually stressed. It's a big thing to do a little thing. That's why things don't get done. That's why I'm in chaos. Now I get all these people helping me.

Ukh. People helping me. I just want to crawl away and hide.

I want a bird feeder for all these blue tits. I haven't actually seen a blue tit around here. They're so tiny, they're like blue sparrows only slightly smaller (more wren-like) and highly agile. They hang out more at bird-tables and are frequently seen feeding upside down. They form mixed flocks with great tits, according to Wikipedia.

I can't wait for tomorrow because tomorrow I can get some paints. Whether I actually will get them is anyone's guess. Usually I don't do anything I actually plan to. I know I should do it but get lost in the detail. There is too much gory detail in life. There is too much gore. That is why I hate life. That is why I have to win the euromillions lottery. It's £50 million next week. I need enough to get a house with high prison walls to keep the world OUT.

Well I don't feel depressed any more. I felt depressed last night so I took a load of methadone and slept deeply. Then I woke up feeling fine. There are FAR worse things you can get diagnosed with than "elevated mood" (and my mood is elevated far more than it is low) so I'm not complaining. As Serious Illnesses go I think I got just about the best one. I keep hearing about, thinking about, seeing all sorts of physical injury and disease that scares the living shit out of me. Then I'm really glad I don't have to deal with that. I might be thinking that because I'm ill, but at least I am just thinking it not being it. (And I could get lost from here on in, as I get lost in what I think... ukkkk is that why my Dr thinks I'm crazy?)

O I have to go I don't know where I'm going now. Blue tits! There ya go. Left it on a positive note didn't I!!


Illustrated: tiny tits in various positions in British gardens

A Flight of Blue Tits

IT'S 10 to midnight. I slept a few hours and woke up, finally, with a bit of calm! The following was written five hours earlier:

LET ME TRY and give a less winky-dink expression of today's goings-on than that bunch of crap you see one post below.

I went to my appointment today. Tomorrow I have one at the Psychiatrist rather than the Nutter Club. Unfortunately they crash but I had scheduling problems due to a computer error and I must take the time offered.

Naomi [the dual diagnosis lady] phoned me just now and pointed out he is a Consultant and so timewise finds himself practically meeting appointments pretty much when he is and isn't allowed to use the loo. It gets that bad!

If I were a doctor I'd be a Consultant Neurologist (never a psychiatrist: too headfucking that one. People with schizophrenia and bipolar ranting at me half the day and then the other 50% pf patients not wanting to speak. No thanks. Neurology patients usually can speak pretty fluently unless they're comatose in which case the checks and charts do the talking for them.

Now my own head is babbling away. I have Racing Thoughts or a Flight of Ideas. Like little tubbie birdies thrumming from one bird table to another. Now they're in the birdbath. Splish splash splosh. And they're blue tits. My favourite British Garden Birdies. Ask another British person if you don't believe about Blue Tits, They're beautiful..

OK back to midnight: my flight of ideas is safely in its nest boxes, has refrained from chirping and is looking forward to perching upside down tomorrow morning on the feeder.

I think what was wrong earlier was a long day and me just wanting to be home, crossed with the necessity to do endless little things that just got in the way when I was tired and wanted to unwind and the upshot was manic paranoia from which it takes hours to calm down. Naomi was very helpful. She just happened to phone right in the middle. I wasn't "going off on one" in a big way. No ranting. No talking nonsense. She knows how thin the line is between appearing to cope and not coping at all. That's why I like her.

She told me to focus on myself at tomorrow's doctor appointment and not my surrounding issues because other professionals are dealing with those.

All I would need say re today, if that came up, would be "I felt paranoid on the bus, like people were talking about me, so I got off earlier than I would have".

If I were a regular smoker of cannabis or crack I wouldn't be surprised to feel the way I do, but I gave up both. Cannabis went years ago, crack went two years ago (with a handful of lapses). My drugs workers at the time assured me my problems with paranoia and depression (that were only ever eluded to, nobody ever asked about them in any detail, so I never told in any detail) they assured me these problems would vanish in a puff of cocaine smoke. And yet they haven't. Shortly after giving up I realized a common cold had brought a strange return of paranoia and ibbly-bibbly weirdness. And that was a common cold! About 2 years ago.

Well crack has well and truly gone. The last time I used heroin it did nothing for me. Cannabis is a non-issue (never touch it). Uppers I don't go near. Hallucinogens or psychedelics I gave up entirely a decade ago. These had never been a big huge deal though they made a big huge impression on me whenever they were taken. So all these drugs have gone and I am doing all the Right Things I ought to be doing.

Surely I shall see some Fruits of my Labours soon..?

TITS IN THE BATH!
Bluetit playtime in Amsterdam!






Illustrated: blue tits and a Ancient Egyptian space alien ...


THIS is an A1 description of "racing thoughts"...

Toothpaste stains

I GOT UP AT 4:30 this morning. I feel like I could do with a year's more sleep but there you go. After smoking lots of cigarettes, trotting down the shop for smoked mackerel, Hovis bread and 2 litres of cyder (I'm cutting down) plus my tropical fruit juice (supposedly it's as good for you as eating veg, but I find that hard to believe)... after all this I scurried back home and wasted an hour watching BBC's early morning news and rubbish. The guy presenting used to be ITN's royal correspondent but I can't remember his name. Nick something. Being royal correspondent meant tilting your head slightly and inflecting the voice all sentimental-like whenever mentioning the Queen Mother. I was never convinced the Queen Mum was quite as kindly as portrayed. For one thing HM the Queen appeared, from the vast distance I view her, to be completely under her thumb. Since her Mum's death she seems to have become much more of her own woman. Her fashion sense appears to have improved immensely. The Queen is the funkiest-dressing old woman alive. With the exception of Rosie, the Trance granny who made luminous laurel crowns. I met her at the Warp club (Rosie, not the Queen) under an enormous railway arch round the corner from the London Dungeon, but I had seen her picture in the music press. She was famous for her octogenarian psychedelic ways.

There is a bevy of sparrows down my road. They live in a hedge and chirp their tuneless little heads off every morning. Cheep! Chirp! Twit! Twat! Twitter!! They say. My nightingale, who used to live in the nearest tree to our house is still on migration in West Africa. He or she won't be back until the spring. I know it was a nightingale because I matched the bird by appearance and song. The song was amazing, it tweetled and twittered all night like an LSD canary. I kept my window open especially. O man those sparrows are chirruping LOUD this morning. Sparrows all but disappeared from London about 15 years ago. They used to hang out in flocks along with the pigeons in parks. Even today, though you see them more, they're rare.

HEROIN! I haven't used any since I non-used the other day.. how many days clear am I now..? Seven days. I scored on December 23rd. Just checked me blog. That's the convenience of being a blogger. I know the day and date I did everything. Now I'm off to get my methadone. They're usually open by 8:30. I took half as much methadone as usual yesterday and today and am not feeling it so far... does this make me Addict-Invincible or will a horrible rebound come and slam me with creepytime withdrawal..? I bet it will. But there ya go. I want OFF that crap. The sooner the better. Chemical slavery. Heroin without any fun at all. I hate it.

I've got to go. Those sparrows are distracting me bigtime.

This is the twit-twit jug-jug chirrupydirrupydoodles song of the nightingale:



WOW I can't believe this, this is ROSIE from the Warp on film!!!



Warp Club London 1999: on lots of lovely MDMA hippieflipping I accidentally took 2 Mitsubishis at once in here, fell asleep and woke up flying through the roof. That was a good night (well morning: the club finished at 9pm so I never usually turned up till 6 or 7 in the morning)...
The place looks sparse because it was probably 11am by the time this was shot, and there were at least 5 more rooms of equal or bigger size, it was a HUGE club...
... ukh was the dancing really that terrible? I must have been on drugs!!



Illustrated: wow! a sink dirtier than mine! BBC Breakfast with Dermott Murnughan and Sian somethingorother; HM the Queen, looks good in a hat; a nightingale

Bowerbirds

If they were human they might collect beer mugs or stamps


There are 20 types of bowerbird


They collect anything that catches their eye: beetles' wing cases, bottle-tops, even deer dung


They arrange these outside the bower to attract a mate


Some even "borrow" clothes pegs (colour-co-ordinated, of course)


Bowerbirds come from Northern Australia and New Guinea


Some more traditionally minded birds prefer flower petals and blossom to plastic implements

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH:

Canary Song

FEATHERY SATURDAY...

Five minutes from my house is a flowershop with a canary, who sits outside in a cage singing his feathery little head off. Today he was singing so loud I could hear him right across the main road!



PETER GABRIEL; KATE BUSH: DON'T GIVE UP

Don't give up
'cause you have friends
Don't give up
You're not the only one
Don't give up
No reason to be ashamed
Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up now
We're proud of who you are
Don't give up
You know it's never been easy
Don't give up
'cause I believe there's a place
There's a place where we belong



WISHING Y'ALL AN AMAZING WEEKEND ...

Coloured Chicks!

Multicoloured Friday on Saturday...



Wishing y'all a wonderful weekend!

Rip van Gledwood II

STILL UNWELL... yes, Rip van Gledwood II. Yesterday, I slept literally 20 hours with only piss-breaks.

I can't even talk about going to bed last night, because it wasn't last night, it was yesterday daytime and I wasn't in bed. I slumped in an armchair at 11am and slept all afternoon and evening through and stirred myself at some point in the early hours around 2am, when I peed like Niagara falls. Then immediately back to sleep. And sleep. And deeper sleep. My phone was full of missed calls so I know I slept very deeply indeed. Finally, around 5am I woke up. Urinated again. Slept two hours more.

Then, after 7am Friday morn, I considered myself "up", so I wandered to my bedroom and lay down in bed, where I slept "properly" (ie not hunched over) till after 8:30.

All in all that's past 20 hours' sleep. 22 hours perhaps.

This is what I hate about my sleep: it strikes me down like some manner of disease and I wake up not refreshed but sluggish and unwell and wishing I had not bothered getting up at all.

Well I'm awake now. And I survived. And a new day dawned 16 hours ago, meaning I missed Chogstable's dawn chirping, though a bird whose chirrups and trills bore striking resemblance to Chogstable's melodic twirly-whirling was trilling its head off earlier when I went off for methadone and sweet chili chicken pizza. Chogstable is my personal nightingale. He's not, of course, my pet, because he doesn't live with me. But he chirps his feathery little head off just for me every night, the tiny entertainer!

Now I'm weary once more and for lack of anything more inspiring to post thought I'd brocade you with this dullardly tale. I hope your last couple of days were a little more inspiring plus ~ of course ~ I wish THE CHEERIEST WEEKEND TO Y'ALL..!

Die Nachrichten

HIER SIND DIE NACHRICHTEN VON GLEDWOOD
Ich weiß, ich sollte einen besonderen Deutschen Blog anfangen... ja ich weiß. Aber im Augenblick blogge ich noch hier.

Der Hund meiner Freundin Belinda, der Alfred heißt ist krank! Letzte Woche wurde er operiert. Er liegt im Korb und sieht sehr öde aus. Nie habe ich ein so armer Hund gesehen. Er ist so ältlich, er sieht wie ein kleiner silbergrauen Esel aus. Sein Augen sind so elend. Heute war Alfred noch im Korb. Er trug eine kleine Hundenjacke und bewegte sich nicht. Er sah kalt aus ~ während das Temperatur 30 Grad erreichte. Er ist so alt, er konnte mich nicht hören, und er wußte nicht, dass ich dort war. Ich denke es tut ihn zu viel weh, den Schwanz zu schütteln. Belinda sagt er muss wieder zum Tierartz ~ noch mehr Chirurgie. Ich hoffe, er wird OK.

Wie ich gesagen habe, ist es hier so heiß! Heute war es schwitzender feucht. Ich fühlte, als ob ich bekleidet in der Dusche gegangen war! Sehr unangenehm. Das BBC warnt vor einer Hitzewelle mit 32 Grad oder noch höher. Ich hoffe ich werde nicht zum Tod schwitzen. Dieses Transpirationsproblem ist nur nach Heroin gekommen. Bevor meiner Rauschgiftsucht liebte ich den Sommer. Nun wurde ich lieber das ganzes Jahr in Winter leben. Das Dunkel befördere ich zur Hitze.

Die Vogel in meiner Strasse zirpen noch laut. Wir haben viele Spatzen. Sie piepsen ganz unmelodisch den ganzen Tag lang. Flapper, die Ringeltaube hat verschwunden! Ich ahne, er hat eine Affäre mit einer Ringeltaube-Frau, die in der nächste Strasse auf einer neuen Luxus-Antenne gurrt. Vielleicht gibt es da Platz für zwei...

Ich muss jetzt gehen. Es ist schon Mitternacht, und das Temperatur ist noch 19 Grad! Ich schwitze noch wie ein Schwein. Ich hoffe, ich werde schlafen können ohne ertrinken!

Hot, exhausted day

IT WAS 28 DEGREES CENTIGRADE TODAY. For London this is hot. I'm sweating like a swine. It's ten minutes to ten at night and only just getting dark. High summertime!

I'M STILL EXHAUSTED. I slept nearly all night; then what do I do but spend half the day asleep from sheer exhaustion too!

I wish I had something interesting to post. Not really. Flapper the wood pigeon appears to have upped and left. I think he is having an affair.

My friend's dog, who is so elderly he looks like a little silver-grey donkey, has had an operation. Every time I see him he's in his basket with the most forlorn expession on his face. I have never seen a doggie look so sad. I think he is in pain. I hope he's OK.

I heard a radio feature today called Home Thoughts from Abroad, where the BBC take London-based correspondents from the foreign press and give them open mike to hold forth on any aspect of life in the UK that interests them. Today's broadcast, by die Zeit journalist John F Jungclaussen basically outlines the reasons why I want out of Britain. That we are becoming ever increasingly authoritarian and less and less free.

If you want to hear it you can listen online (from anywhere worldwide), click here.

Deutsche-in-London.net review of programme.

Keywords/Schlüsselwörter: exhausted verbraucht; sheer exhaustion absolut Erschöpfung; wood pigeon Ringeltaube; to appear erscheinen; to up and leave abhauen; elderly ältlich; donkey der Esel; basket der Korb; forlorn öde; expression der Ausdruck; hold forth sich über etwas auslassen; broadcast Sendung; authoritarian autoritär

One more birdie:

Noch einander Vogelein:

Japanese budgie saying "hello" and pipping out the most peculiar sounds...
Japanischer Wellensittich macht ungewöhnlichen Lärm:

Birdie-bathing....

FEATHERY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY
FEDERARTIGER SAMSTAG




What an amazing sight; Nikki the cockatiel washing wings under kitchen tap!
Was für ein wunderschönes Blick! Nymphensittich wascht die Flügeln unter Küchezapfen!




Gonzo really goes for it under the tap. You'd think they'd really hate water dripping right between the feathers, but apparently not so:
Man liebt das Wasser so...



Mad French woman strips off and takes squeaky-squarking cockatiel into shower... (no tiny tits)
Verrückte Französin entkleidet und bringt lärmenden schreienden Vogel in die Duschi mit:



Extraordinarily tame budgie goes for outdoor Tupperware bath...
Außergewöhnlich zahmer Wellensitti ch nimmt Tupperware-Bad im Freien:



Blue tit has splish-splash-sploshy jamboree in the bath:
"Blaumeise spielt Propeller im Vogelbad" ~ sehr komisch!




I don't know what this is because it's Russian and it still won't load, but if anyone sees it and likes it, please tell me!
Über diesem hab' ich keine Ahnung...




Only in Japan 鳥風呂 ~ it takes a while to get going, but eventually you see an entire flock of (pet) canaries taking a dip...
Kanarienvogelflug baden....



And last but not least: bizarre Japanese bird-tin antics:
Bizarre Vogeldosegrimassen aus Japan:

Winziges Blaumeise-Baby in der Straße

English-speakers: this is a German adaptation of yesterday's story about the baby bird in the street, "I nearly grabbed a tiny tit".

Gestern habe ich einen kleinen blauen Vogel in der Straßenmitte gefunden. Das winzige Küken sah zu mir auf, und piepste, "was willst du mit mir?" Es war ein Blaumeisebaby, vielleicht ein Teenager, noch nicht flügge.
Ich sagte, "Du kannst nicht in der Mitte der Straße bleiben. Also gehe!"
Ich kniete nieder, dann flog es in die Gosse. Da blieb es, und piepste und piepste.
Ich sagte, "Da kannst du auch nicht bleiben! Fliehe zurück zum Nest!"
Ich winkte die Armen. Dann flog es zu einer niedrigen Mauer, wo man sitz um seinen Dealer zu erwarten. Dann klingelte mein Telefon. Mein "Freund" erzählte mir, "Ich fahre nun die Straße entlang." Also, zuerst musste ich damit abfertigen. Ich dachte, ob das Vogelein noch da ist, werde ich es zuhause mitbringen.
Also traf ich meinen Freund. Zwei Minuten später kehrte ich an die Wand zurück: aber von dem winzigen Küken ~ keine Spur. Ich suchte und suchte wie eine Stecknadel. Ich horchte und horchte auf seinen kleinen Piepser: nichts.
Vielleicht ist es doch nur zum Guten. Was hätte ich getan? Sollte ich es wirklich zuhause mitbringen? Dort habe ich einen Hamsterkäfig in dem es gelebt haben könnte. Aber wie würde ich ein winziges Küken füttern? Wäre es nicht zu zahm werden? Wie würde ich wissen, wann es freizulassen? Würde ich es jemals freilassen können?
Na ja. Es ist jetzt nach Mitternacht. Ich hoffe nur das die klitzekleine Blaumeise zurück im nest schlaft, und träumt vielleicht von eines Tages im großen blauen Himmel zu fliegen...

I nearly grabbed a tiny tit...

I WAS CROSSING a quiet road near one of our largest local parks when a tiny blue bird fluttered down from a tree and sat in the middle of the road. I crossed and stood over him. What looked like a baby blue tit stared up at me, chirping indignantly as if to say "and what do you think YOU are doing here??!"
Wondering what was wrong with the little bird, who still refused to move, I made a motion to grab it; he fluttered clumsily off a couple of feet away and sat in the gutter cheep-cheeping at the top of his tiny lungs.
I thought "you can't stay there in the gutter like that" and made yet another not attempt at grabbing the little birdie, who did a better job at flying this time and found himself on the footpath beside a little wall where drug addicts sit waiting for their dealers (this of course this had nothing to do my being in that vicinity...)
Then my phone rang and "a friend" said he was driving down the road right at that moment, so I had to deal with that. I thought to myself, if the tiny tit is still there in a couple of minutes, then I'll take him home with me. He cannot sit on the path like that. He'll get trodden on or killed.
Three minutes later he was gone. I looked everywhere for him. He could have strayed under the parked cars where a cat would have made a tasty meal of him... I searched high and low, but could not hear his cheep-cheeping from anywhere. I have no idea where he went, or whether he suddenly learned how to fly.
Judging by his cheeps, he was a great tit, not fully fledged, but very spirited. I didn't want to take him home, though I do have a hammy cage he could have gone in... When would I have known to set him free? Would he ever have been able to go free if he'd lived in my house and become hand-tame?
Perhaps it's a good thing he vanished...

If you go to my first post yesterday and look under the German, you'll see some wonderful video of baby blue and great tits being hand-fed worms, etc. There's a particularly funny one of a blue tit getting soaking wet in a birdbath...

So why did this happen today? Is it the laws of attraction in action?

Illustrations: top, great tits; bottom, blue tit. Mine looked like a blue tit (very blue), but the chirrups sounded to me like a great tit, so I'm not sure...

Warum die Amerikaner an meinen Lieblingsvogel lachen

GESTERN war ich so erschöpft, ich schlief pracktisch den ganzen Tag lang, und wachte um 04:00 Uhr.
Chogga die Nachtigall könnte ich nicht hören, weil der morgendliche Gesang der Gartenvogel noch angefangen hatte. Dies nennen wir hier the dawn chorus ~ der Chorgesang der Dämmerung. Er ist eine der spektakulärsten Phänomene der Natur.
Abgesehen von der Singvogel, meine Lieblingsvogel sind die Meisen, besonders die Blaumeise und die Kohlmeise.
Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich am Fütterhäuschen umgedreht speisen.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben, dass ich scherze nicht.
Die Blaumeise ist nur ein Nord- und Zentraleuropäischer Vogel; das Habitat der Kohlmeise weitet süd und ost nach Indien und genau Japan. Aber in Nordamerika sind diese Vogel unbekannt.
Also wenn ich ihnen mit ihren richtigen Namen nenne, the blue tit und the great tit ~ dann verstehen meine Amerikanische Freunden, dass ich etwas über Frauenbrüste spreche: die blaue Titte und die Großtitte.
Kein Wunder lachen sie so!


ACHTUNG!
GRAMMATISCHE KRISE! Bitte helft mir!
Welcher ist korrekt?/ Das erste? Die zweite? Oder etwas anders? Wie sage ich:

Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich am Fütterhäuschen umgedreht speisen.
Sie sind die minute federartige Akrobaten des Gartens, die behaglich auf dem Kopf stehend am Fütterhäuschen speisen.

Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben nicht, dass ich scherze.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kann ich nie sicher sein, dass meine amerikanische Leser glauben, dass ich scherze nicht.
Als ich diesen Fakt auf meinem Blog anmelde, kannich nie sicher sine, dass meine amerikanische Leser
nicht, dass ich scherze glauben...

... oder was?!
Ich bin ganz verloren!

Blaumeise füttert ihre Babys
Bluetit feeds chicks:



Minute Kohlmeise sitzt auf dem Hand, isst und zirpt laut!
Tiny great tit sits on hand, eats and cheeps loudly:



Blaumeise, Kohlmeise, Sperling und Eichelhäher
Blue tits, great tits, sparrows and European (not blue) jay
Unlike the American blue jay, the European jay is rare and shy ~ it is considered a blessing to see one



Befreite Blaumeise isst Wurmchen in menschlichem Haus
Rescued blue tit eats little worms in humans' house:



Blaumeise spielt Propeller im Vogelbad
Blue tit goes for a splash in birdie-bath:



RATHER than do the translating myself, here for the English-speaking majority is some special entertainment performed by Google:

Why the Americans laugh at my favorite bird
YESTERDAY, I was so exhausted, I slept practical at all day long, and woke up at 04:00 clock.
Chogga I could hear the nightingale, not because the morning song of the bird garden had begun. We call this the dawn chorus singing the chorus ~ dusk. He is one of the most spectacular phenomena of nature.
Apart from the singing bird, my favorite bird, the titmouse, especially the blue tit and great tit.
They are the spring-minute acrobats of the garden, feed the comfortable Fütterhäuschen turned on.
As I sign this fact on my blog, I can never be sure that my American readers do not think I'm joking.
The blue tit is only one North and Central European bird, the habitat of the great tit is expanding south and east to India and Japan carefully. But in North America, this bird are unknown.
So if I call them by their real names, the blue tit and the great tit ~ then understand my American friends that I talk about women's breasts, the blue tit and the Großtitte.
No wonder they laugh like that!

Bilder: deutscher Text: Blaumeise; englischer Text oben: Kohlmeise; unten Blaumeise
Illustrations: German text: blue tit; English text top: great tit, bottom blue tit


LINKS:
10,000 Birds blog: blue tit post
Blue tit fact sheet
BBC: great tits: facts, pictures, video