Birdsong audit

We seem to alternate this winter between overcast rainy days and blue sky sunny days with afternoon showers. Today is one of the latter. I had just under six hours sleep, waking at seven, having got to bed just before midnight and losing an hour awake in the night. The impact of the meds was less pronounced and my head was clear once they took effect after breakfast and. No pins and needles sensation in my head today but sleepy enough after lunch to need an hour in bed to recover. The variability in my reaction is unpredictable. It's hard to know what I'm going to be capable of tackling as the day goes on.

The Green Party won a substantial parliamentary by-election victory in the Greater Manchester area yesterday. Andy Burnham, the popular and effective Mayor of Manchester offered himself as a candidate for a traditional Labour seat but was not selected, when it could have been won against right and left wing opponents. Losing this winning opportunity is an embarrassing own-goal for the Labour Party. Perceived as a rival leader to Keir Starmer, the excuse given for Burnham's non selection as a candidate was that he was doing too good a job as Mayor, and a mayoral by-election couldn't be afforded by the party. Methinks Starmer and his camp followers may live to regret this.

I went out to enjoy the sunshine walking in Llandaff Fields and heard the eerie cry of a Green Woodpecker in the coppice opposite Howells School. The Merlin bird app, identified this along with the song of a robin a wren, a blackcap, a blackbird, a redwing, a song thrush, a mistle thrush, a wood pigeon and a magpie. Ten different birds in the same patch of bushes and trees. I listened to the recording later in the day, but sadly forgot to save it. Such biodiversity in our parks, more than in our street's back gardens. These are dominated by crows, magpies, gulls, wood pigeons and starlings roosting in the roof eaves, and sometimes passing sparrows and tits. There's not enough vegetation cover for smaller birds where there's decking or paved patios. 

I went for another circuit of Llandaff fields after my post lunch siesta. It started to drizzle before sunset and more rain is forecast for later tonight. The roar of the Taff over the weir at Blackweir bridge was audible from the Spine Road five hundred metres away. The water level must be high at the moment.

I watched another fine episode of 'Lolita Lobosco' after supper, to take my mind off doing things I don't have energy to tackle at the moment with my 'toxic head' impeding my ability to tackle them. It's not a good place to be. I feel as if I'm not fully in control of my senses. I want to avoid slipping into panic mode and raising my blood pressure even more. Time to take refuge in sleep as best I can.

Virtual SIM virtues

Another cloudy day, comfortably warm. I woke up just before my phone notification sounded to remind me to post today's Morning Prayer YouTube link to the Parish Whats app group, and got up after the eight o'clock news.

As usual I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. We were eleven plus baby Sebastian who was brought by his grandpa for the first time today. It's his first birthday tomorrow, which means he's been in church on Wednesdays almost every week that the family has been in Cardiff for the past eleven months, much to the pleasure of all the regular oldies who make up the congregation. I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter on my way home, and cooked a pasta dish with the flavoursome black beans which I tried for the first time last week.

I walked to Cowbridge Road East and took a bus to town, aiming to go to John Lewis' and check out a phone I'm thinking of buying - another Moto G. Its abiding appeal, like the one I have currently, is a version of Android which isn't laden with software unwanted to get rid of as soon as I set it up. There's a G24 on offer in the summer sale which is an improvement on mine, which I may offer. It has an added extra in the form of an eSIM, a digital software device which hosts software that emulates a physical SIM. With this I'd be able to buy a second phone number giving me as much data and phone time as I need plus free data roaming in Europe. 

Last year in Nerja I bought a physical SIM and two months worth of data for €20, covering eight of the ten weeks of my stay, a quarter of the cost of paying for EE data roaming. It was Kath's idea. When she and Anto were in Australia they bought an eSIM which covered the weeks of their stay and a lot more too. It's possible to de-activate an eSIM and retain what's left of our data allowance to use on another foreign trip. I'll buy a new phone before our Duoro cruise and add an eSIM there, where the mobile coverage along the Duoro will probably cover the borderlands of Portugal and Spain. Having checked the information, price and availability of the Moto G24, I made my way back to the Holiday Inn bus stop to return home. There are several phone shops in Grand Arcade, each with their own range of phone brands and contract to offer. I was bemused to notice that the EE/BT shop displayed no phones around its walls at all. Customers have to sit down with a store assistant to discuss their needs or wants, and then maybe look at selected ones on screen. The chosen phone is then retrieved when a deal is done from a stock room behind the scenes. It's possible for a customer to order on line and collect their purchase ad lib. An interesting variation in retail practice as it has evolved and grown since Covid.

Clare was walking up the row of shops on Penhill Road as I arrived there from the bus so we walked home together. She surprised, producing at short notice, carrot and coriander soup for supper with the surfeit of carrots available today. After we'd eaten, I went out for some fresh air, following a short spell of drizzle that made the evening smell as clean as at first light. For the rest of the evening I worked my way through my birdsong recordings, editing them, amplifying the sound and cleaning tracks of background noise. This robs them of any natural environment sounds but delivers the essential melody. Very useful if you want to memorise it and identify the bird in question. Fiddly, but worthwhile.

Parakeets unrecognised

Rain in the night and a cloudy windy start to the day. I got to bed late and slept late to make up the deficit. Day after day, the news from Gaza is unremittingly worse. People queuing for food at distribution points organised by a US-Israeli foundation rather than the established UN agencies, getting fired upon with a couple of dozen people killed. The Israelis say they fire warning shots over the heads of people deviating from the prescribed route, and blame Hamas fighters for the killings. Who knows what the truth is when no independent crime scene investigators are allowed in?  

After breakfast Clare went to her study group in Penarth, and I went to Beanfreaks to stock up on an assortment of items. The wind was pushing apart the cloud cover when I got back and the sun shone into the dining room in brief bursts, as I settled down to make the video slideshow for next week's Morning Prayer, sitting at the table to work. Forgetting what time it was, I didn't start making lunch until just before Clare returned at a quarter to one. Fortunately, quick and easy fish and frozen chips went in the oven, and were ready to eat by twenty past. 

I finished the video and uploaded it after we'd eaten. Then I went for a walk around Thompson's Park. It was just at a time when parents with infants collected from the nursery nearby gather socially by the cafe, recently closed. A class from one of the local primary schools was enjoying a session of physical exercise on the recently mown upper grass area, warming up by running about, then playing a game of rounders. Given the fresh breeze blowing, they'll have had plenty of fresh air as well. Several green parakeets were calling raucously from the surrounding trees. I ran the Merlin app to check on what else might be up there, as there were other strange sounds as well. To my surprise no bird was identified. Seeing me holding my phone, a lady passing by said "Parakeets, but you won't find it on Merlin." I agreed. Merlin automatically identifies the phone's location. Although Parakeets have been around Cardiff in small numbers for several years, they are not yet registered hereabouts on the birding map database. 

I came home for a break from the wind and to rest after an hour. If I walk seven or eight kilometres in one go, my feet are quite painful at the end, although I'm not really tired. If I spread out my daily distance with a couple of rests, it's not as painful. I went out again and walked for another three quarters of an hour before supper. Result? No foot pain. My feet seem to recover quickly, for now at least.

Clare's arthritic hip pain is getting worse, and she's thinking about paying for the operation. First, a request for an up to date x-ray, to be able to compare how much deterioration there's been in the past six months. That may influence the time she may have to spend in the NHS surgery queue. We'll see.

After supper I watched the first episode of a new German crimmie, which seems to be about a conspiracy by a neo-nazi group to subvert a police recruit. Then rather than watch more I read more of  'Sangre Nueva' for the rest of the evening.

Icon finished

It was overcast and raining when I woke up. Although the rain turned into a persistent drizzle for the rest of the day, that gusty wind which has been around for the past week blew intermittently - really miserable. Clare's study group members turned up at ten. When Fran arrived she told us that the icon of the Trinity is not finished. The image is going to appear on the front cover of an Anthroposophical magazine, due out soon, but there's been a problem for the printer producing a suitable colour faithful digital image. It's a tricky business, given the minor variations in the way digital camera sensors record colour and respond to lighting conditions - well beyond my technical competence.

I spent the morning in the front room recording and editing next Wednesday's Morning Prayer and Reflection, and then cooked mackerel for lunch. The drizzle just about stopped, though not the wind so I ventured out quite late for my afternoon walk. I went to the shops to buy a Welsh greeting card for Veronica's birthday then to the Post Office to sign and send it. Then I transferred all the birdsong recordings I've made using the Merlin app from my phone to my Windows laptop, to examine them in detail, amplifying and cleaning up the WAV file, removing the sections with irrelevant sounds, traffic, conversation, wind noise. Well, I made a start on it, and will need to go through the good extracts to identify which birds are which, as the app time and place data isn't attached to the audio.

Clare had supper early, ready to go to her meditation group. I went out again and walked for an hour, at an unusually fast pace for me. I don't why this should be. Normally after a sedentary morning, it's a struggle to regain the spring in my step. I got back in time for the Archers and was about to go out again to complete my daily distance when Clare returned and asked me to go to the Co-op to buy veggie sausages for her lunch tomorrow, which I did. Then I watched more of the weird Finnish murder mystery 'Evilside', until bed time. 

 

Introducing Merlin

Since Mayday is thought of as the beginning of summer, the continuing spell of unusually warm weather is very definitely summery rather than half way between the start of spring and the start of summer. Just as nine o'clock comes around we often get a robot scam call likewise at lunchtime. Each time a different fake caller number is displayed. I reached the phone to pick up and leave to one side idle, keeping the line open until the robot scammer times out. Speak, and an automatic message is delivered called for a response. The longer the line is idle the fewer numbers robo-scammer can auto-dial. If the voicemail message kicks in, a notification is left reporting the fake number as a missed call. You're then stuck with a phone which bleeps you about missed calls, and obliges you to return the call, you cannot just delete it, unless there is some arcane way of doing this I haven't yet discovered. Such a nuisance.

Again it's 22C today. Ann's experience with the Merlin app yesterday convinced me to give it a try, so I installed it on my phone, and tested it again one of yesterday's recordings in the park, which I knew was a blackbird. The app confirmed this. Then I tried a four minute file of birdsong in the Taffside woodlands. I was astonished that the app recognised snatches of ten birds, including a peregrine falcon which nests in Llandaff Cathedral tower. It distinguished between song and missle thrushes, identified a blackcap which I've only ever caught a glimpse of, a nuthatch, a robin, and so on. All of these I know and most of them I have caught sight of at one time or another. It's amazingly good, designed and run by Cornell University. It's a research tool that can be used wherever you are in the world, and the data helps build a live data map which ornithology students can refer to. I love this idea and its outworking. No ads!

By the time I'd properly labelled all my edited bird song files and deleted the raw audio files, it was time to cook lunch, to convert fish pie mix from the Market into a slow cooking paella, going carefully, using risotto rice, as we can't get hold of paella rice at the moment. An enjoyable experience with bright sunlight to lighten the mood even further. Clare returned from the shop just when it was ready to serve.

There were more heavy grocery items to go shopping for after lunch, then a walk in the park. Again I feel physically tired today, yet I've not been exercising any more than usual lately. The Fitbit app keeps telling me I'm 'overdoing training' and need to rest more. I don't train, but follow the same routine of being in the fresh air for at least two hours every day. Could it be that I'm starting to wear out? I decided to reduce my daily step and distance target by ten percent, to see if it makes any difference. It's true I'm walking more slowly, taking longer to cover my target distance. Clare's painful hip is compelling her to walk at nearly half her usual pace. It means re-calculating the estimated time taken to walk to routine destinations, like church, Beanfreaks, the surgery, nearest bus stops etc. More trials of senescence.

After supper I looked at photos taken in the park of people enjoying the sunshine, as I did yesterday. Youngsters horse riding, playing rugby a barbecue picnic, swimming at Blackweir. Thinking about how to exhibit these in an interesting way in a photobook or a gallery display. Every picture tells a story, but how to get them to tell a story together that makes sense? It's something I'm not familiar with.

The the premiere of a Friday night 'Walter Presents' series called 'Panda', a French comedy flic story with a whodunit mystery tackled by an inexperienced investigator and an ex-cop with Sherlock Homes type powers of observation, who/s dropped out of the force and turned into hippie dropout beach bum yogi who gets in her way. It's quite funny, and the French is easy to follow. Then bed.