Today, one adult white stork on the meadow.
Joined by its two young, who must have managed to fly from the nest for the first time.
Flying over the meadow, a red admiral.
I would see several more in the nature reserve.
Also, a comma.
In the castle pond, two adult great crested grebes, with two chicks on the back of one of them.
A carp swimming.
A dead shrew on a path.
From British daily The Independent:
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has signalled its resurgence by agreeing a 50 per cent increase in its staffing levels and campaigning budget as it fights the Government’s plans to replace Trident and allow a new generation of nuclear power stations.
CND‘s membership fell from a peak of 110,000 in 1983, when the Cold War made nuclear weapons a burning issue, to 32,000 last year.
But since Tony Blair’s announcement in May that nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance”, the organisation has had a 300 per cent rise in new members.
CND and Britain in the 1960s: here.
This video is called Oliver Twist English Trailer (2005).
By Phil Shannon:
A true tale of Dickensian England
The Real Oliver Twist: Robert Blincoe — A Life that Illuminates an Age
By John Waller
Icon Books, 2005
468pp, $39.95 (hb)The beatings and tortures were cruel and constant — Robert Blincoe, a mere child, would be kicked into the air; knocked to the ground with punches; thrashed with sticks, belts and rope; pelted in the head with metal machine parts; lifted by the ears, shaken violently and tossed to the ground; forced to eat candle, tar and tobacco spittle; and had nails dug into his ear lobes and metal vices hung from his ears.
Small, crooked and horribly scarred from a childhood spent working in English cotton mills during the Industrial Revolution, Blincoe went on to belie his appearance and become an imposing upright figure in the political movement for human rights for working people.
The Real Oliver Twist, by Melbourne University’s John Waller, is an impressive tribute to Blincoe, whose story of appalling suffering, ill-treatment and neglect inspired Charles Dickens to write Oliver Twist.
Abandoned as an illegitimate orphan soon after his birth in 1792, Blincoe was thrown on the meagre charity of the local authorities of the parish of St Pancras on the outskirts of London.
The parish workhouse which fed — and controlled — the poor, offered vermin, overcrowding, rigorous discipline and drudgery to its young inmates.
Dickens‘ Great Expectations: here.
Nicholas Nickleby: here.
This video is called Gladiators fighting at the Chester Amphitheatre.
From archaeology.about.com:
Archaeo-Cam: The Chester Amphitheatre Project
The live camera on this website tracks the excavation progress (Tuesdays through Saturdays) at the Chester Amphitheatre, a Roman theater in Chester, England.
In addition to onsite tours and a designated site tour guide, the excavators have provided a weblog where visitors may post queries about the ongoing investigations.
This is a hobby nest video.
From Dutch Staatsbosbeheer:
Nature reserve Oostvaardersplassen [in the central Netherlands] has a new breeding bird species: the hobby (Falco subbuteo). …
This is a beautiful addition to a long list of birds of prey nesting in Oostvaardersplassen, like buzzard, goshawk, kestrel, hen harrier, marsh harrier, and, recently, the impressive white-tailed eagle.
The list of birds of prey wintering here is still longer.
Peregrine falcon webcams in The Netherlands: here.
Peregrine nest in Friesland province: here.
From National Geographic:
Rare Whales Can Live to Nearly 200, Eye Tissue Reveals
John Roach
Scientists have looked into the eyes of rare bowhead whales and learned that some of them can outlive humans by generations—with at least one male pushing 200 years old.
“About 5 percent of the population is over a hundred years old and in some cases 160 to 180 years old,” said Jeffrey Bada, a marine chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.
“They are truly aged animals, perhaps the most aged animals on Earth,” he continued.
Bowheads, also known as Greenland right whales, are baleen whales, meaning that instead of teeth they have bonelike plates that they use to strain food from gulps of water.
Century old weapon found in bowhead whale: here.
Southern right whales attacked by kelp gulls: here.
Remember George W Bush’s rhetoric to promote his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, about human rights, women’s rights, blah blah blah blah … ?
From British daily The Independent:
Fury as Karzai plans return of Taliban’s religious police
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul
Published: 17 July 2006
The Afghan government has alarmed human rights groups by approving a plan to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the body which the Taliban used to enforce its extreme religious doctrine.
The proposal, which came from the country’s Ulema council of clerics, has been passed by the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai and will now go before the Afghan parliament.
“Our concern is that the Vice and Virtue Department doesn’t turn into an instrument for politically oppressing critical voices and vulnerable groups under the guise of protecting poorly defined virtues,” Sam Zia Zarifi of Human Rights Watch said.
“This is specially in the case of women, because infringements on their rights tend to be justified by claims of morality.”
Meanwhile, what is Bush doing to women’s rights in his own country?
From Women’s eNews:
Women Press U.S. Violations at U.N. Rights Review
Run Date: 07/17/06
By Bojana Stoparic
WeNews correspondentWhen the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva reviews U.S. compliance with a civil and political rights agreement this week, advocates will be raising women’s rights violations in a critical shadow report.
British troops in Afghanistan: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 