Month: March 2018

Close to the Equinox Festival

We had our second Close to the Equinox mini indoor music festival at the Cottenham Community Centre last week, I’d spent pretty much most of my time since the last one organising this one, recruiting musicians, building the roster and then delegating all the jobs on the day so that I ended up more stressed with nothing to do but wait for my band’s allocated slot at the end, hahah. Anyway, here’s a couple of spliced video clips Mrs Sciencebase recorded sync’ed with pro quality sound recorded by Calvin and Jason.

We once again raised the roof to raise funds at the Cottenham Community Centre at our second mini indoor music festival. Lots of great local musical talent made for an enchanting and community-spirited evening, with Jane Hackshaw, Steve Poole and their team serving refreshments to keep everyone well watered.

First up were local teen choir VoxPop with the irrepressible Siobhan Lihoreau conducting and husband Tim accompanying on piano. We next had mesmerising folk from IVC students Holly and Katherine who go by the name of “Mythopoeic”, followed by the stunning voice of solo singer-guitarist Gemma Bearpark.

Next up, was CCC’s very own Simon Oliver with acrostic acoustic songs from his new CD, followed by sublime singing from Pat Coughlan. Pat was also joined on a couple of songs (including Kylie’s latest hit) by our fabulous and energised compere for the evening the inimitable Liz Morris.

Our next act was Cottenham favourite Lucy Maynard who took us on a grand musical tour from Coldplay and Snow Patrol back to Nina Simone with plenty of wondrous piano songs in between. The final act was my band C5 featuring Jo Brass on lead vocals, Andrea Thomson on backing vocals, Rich Blakesley on lead guitar, Roger Brass on bass, Adam Stewart on drums, and myself on lead vocals and acoustic guitar. There was no riot, but we had them dancing around the tables till (fairly) late.

A special thanks should go to Calvin Monk and Jason Cooper who surrounded us with sound. They more than ably controlled the eclectic mix of instruments and vocals from accordion and fiddle to acoustic and electric guitars, ukulele, piano, drums and bass.

The event attracted a great crowd and ultimately raised a fantastic surplus of almost 800 pounds, smashing the total from our first mini-festival last September and building the cash pot for major improvements at the CCC. So, thank you to everyone who helped including the CCC trustees, all the performers, and all who turned out to watch, and most importantly, listen.

Our third mini festival will hopefully once again be Close to the Equinox, in September, and we hope to see an even bigger crowd next time!

https://www.facebook.com/CottCommCentre/

Bullying Greenfinches

Recently, I posted a video of argumentative Goldfinches. This species seems to be the more common sight on our garden bird feeders. There is a flock of about 12 that spend their time flitting about the environs, competing with the flock of House Sparrows that live here too. And, there are Tits (Great, Blue, and Coal), at least two Robins, a pair of Dunnocks, a couple of Blackbirds, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, peripatetic Starlings, and an escaped show pigeon (a noisy and leucistic specimen). We’ve even had a Redpoll that visited briefly.

One species that seemed to have become a little rarer recently is the Greenfinch, a species of which I’d not seen much in the last couple of years even on country walks. This year, however, there seem to be quite a few about and several took a fancy to one of our feeders.

BS for breakfast

It’s 8:40 am, I’m late to my desk, and although I’ve had a cuppa, I’m dithering about whether to have porridge or cornflakes to give me a sugar boost. But here’s a thought: the notion that breakfast is the most important meal of the day was created by Big Cereal, it’s a myth, nothing more than a publicity campaign to persuade us to buy fast food in cardboard boxes for breakfast.

There is no scientific evidence that eating breakfast makes you healthier, leaner, improves metabolism, reduces disease risk factors, improves BMI, burns more calories, or has any other benefit (other than it being food, and you need food). Manufactured cereals with their high sugar AND high salt content are not a good option anyway, they provide an instant sugar release like eating sweets, and don’t get me on energy/health bars and smoothies (obesity in a bottle)…

James Betts of Bath University, UK, had this to say about the (lack of) science back in 2016: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27292940

The halcyon days of the fisher king

The Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) (a.k.a. the Eurasian Kingfisher, and the River Kingfisher is one of seven resident subspecies that range across Eurasia and North Africa. Some do migrate when their rivers freeze although they are mostly resident. There are at least two residing in Milton Country Park, north of Cambridge. Here’s one of them, a male. Is that his tongue poking out? I stalked him and saw him dive for a fish, this snap was moments after that.

The English name has a fairly obvious and yet colourful emtyology. The Kingfisher is a bird that catches fish and it has majestic plumage: an electric blue upper body and head, vivid orange breast, white neck patch and vivid blue streak down its back. Hence fisher king, Kingfisher. The female’s lower bill also is orange-red with a black tip. Mnemonically speaking, many birders refer to this as the female’s “lipstick” so they can sex the bird at a distance or from photographs. The scientific binomial, Alcedo atthis is even more romantic, however.

Alcedo is from the Latin for kingfisher, which in turn comes from the Greek word halcyon. A halcyon was a mythical bird (not a kingfisher) that made its nest on still waters, hence our notion of halcyon days, peaceful days, when a nest might be built even on water. Atthis, of course, was a beautiful maiden from Greek mythology known to be a favourite of Saphos of Lesbos

The Wheatear has nothing to do with ears of wheat

UPDATE: Just reading in “Wonderland” by Stephen Moss (the bird bits, I assume) and Brett Westwood (the other bits) about how in 1766, naturalist Thomas Pennant noted that 20000 Wheatear were caught on Eastbourne downs and sold in town by the dozen for sixpence as a tasty snack.

Shocking to the modern ear as that sounds in terms of this delicate little bird being a foodstuff it’s not really any worse than eating any other animal. But, it’s the numbers they caught that seem staggering. This was the pre-industrialisation era when flora and fauna boasted far greater numbers than we ever see today in the age of plastic and pollution. The RSPB website says there are about 240,000 breeding pairs in the British Isles each summer.

Wheatear at the Slaughden end of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, May 2017

The Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) is a small, old-world flycatcher. It’s scientific binomial is a tautonym, both words are the same meaning it is the archetype of its class. The word itself comes from the Greek for wine, oenos and anthos meaning flower and is linked to the bird’s return to Greece in the spring when the grapevine is in blossom.

Wheatear RSPB North Warren, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, April 2017

Its English name, Wheatear, conjures up farmland perhaps, crops swaying in the breeze as the bird hops about foraging for insects and grubs. But, it’s nothing of the sort, it comes from the late 16th Century and refers to the colouration of the bird’s rump, it was known as a “white-ears”, which eventually morphed into wheatear. But, it’s not its “ears” that are white, rather it has an obviously white rump seen in flight. “ears” (aers) meaning hindquarters, or buttocks, dating back hundreds of years, thence “arse” in modern English (etymology here). In French the bird is a “cul blanc”, same thing, white rump.

In your Wi-Fi, Hedy Lamarr!

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (1914-2000) was an Austrian-born American film actor often talked of as the most beautiful woman in the movies perhaps most famous for her role in the 1948 Cecil B. DeMille movie Samson and Delilah, playing Delilah to Victor Mature’s Samson AND an inventor.

An inventor, you say? Yes, indeed.

Hedy Lamarr was entirely self-taught when it came to science and engineering, but worked on many different projects in her spare time including a new type of traffic stoplight, a soluble tablet for making a fizzy drink, and perhaps most importantly to the modern world working with composer George Antheil at the beginning of the Second World War, she developed a system that would prevent the Axis powers from jamming Allied torpedoes. The system used a spread spectrum and the pair’s own approach to frequency hopping. These two concepts were known 34 years earlier than this (Nikolai Tesla patented a frequency changing decoy system but didn’t call it frequency hopping at the time) and essentially lie at the heart of wireless information technology and underpinned the beginnings of security for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS.

For the Harry Potter fans among you, her given name may sound familiar. Of course, it’s the name of the eponymous hero’s messenger, a Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) called Hedwig. I assume that the author of the series of books about the child wizard, JK Rowling, was well aware of Hedy Lamarr’s research and inventions and naming the owl was a deliberate tribute to her.

Incidentally, I’ve written about Ms Lamarr before, just never on Sciencebase it seems (I thought I’d paid tribute to her years ago, but seemingly not).

UPDATE: My science friend Clare W pointed me to a radio broadcast that discussed Lamarr and pointed out that she perhaps wasn’t quite the technical pioneer we imagined – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3cvrf

Novichok, or newbie, chemical weapons

Apparently, novichok mean newbie in Russian. That said, the nerve agents going by that name and in the news because of the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter were purportedly developed in the 1970s. Although their precise chemical structures are not known, it is known that that are organophosphate compounds that stop the breakdown of acetylcholine (the same mechanism by which organophosphate pesticides work). This leads to excessive sweating, increased tear and mucus production, bronchoconstriction, nausea and vomiting, gastric pain, spasms, incontinence, and ultimately coma and death. Andy Brunning of Compound Interest fame has the full infographic.

These compounds are ten times more lethal than VX, the nerve agent allegedly used to assassinate Kim-Jong Nam, half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim-Jong Un in 2017.

To feed or not to feed – fat is the question

Recently, I posted about whether or not you should feed wild birds in your garden. The obvious answer if you like birds, is: of course!

Research in the news today asks the same question in the context of emergent diseases that are afflicing avian populations. Here’s the paper.

The bottom line is they don’t really know. You are assisting wild birds if you put out food and keep feeders and bird tables clean. Some birds lacking food and water in harsh weather would otherwise die. But, if lots of different species congregate on dirty feeders with mouldy or rotten food and guano, then emerging diseases can spread more quickly than they would in the wild and birds might be exposed to potentially lethal mycotoxins. The scientists suggest that recruiting citizen scientists could be important to understand better the risk-benefits of feeding wild birds.

In the meantime, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) stress that we should continue to put food and water out, but make sure feeding and drinking stations are kept clean and guano free and any rotten food residues removed regularly.

If you notice lethargic birds in your garden or birds that seem to look dishevelled and don’t end up preening themselves smart again, then you need to remove all the food you’ve put out, disinfect cleaners, tables, etc and not put any more food out for at least a month.

Song Thrush versus Mistle Thrush

If you saw and heard a Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) sat next to a Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus), you’d probably be able to tell immediately that they were different, even if you’re not a birder, although they’re both very similar. However, a lone thrush sat high up in a neighbour’s tree (coincidentally near the mistletoe) is it a Song or a Mistle?

The lone bird Mrs Sciencebase spotted this morning was cackling like the Mistle in this video from BTO and it did seem to be slightly bigger than a Blackbird (Turdus merulea). When it sang it was melodious but didn’t repeat itself; a Song Thrush would repeat a phrase 2-4 times before ad libbing another lick and then coming back to earlier ones. Song Thrushes are also a bit smaller than Blackbirds.

It seemed upright and pot-bellied, its breast was not rusty/rufous like that of the Song Thrush although it’s overcast and grey, so that might be the light? However, the spots on its breast are circular splodges rather than arrow-shaped, so that hints at Mistle Thrush too

Here’s the bird, is it a Mistle Thrush or a Song Thrush? The upper photo is sharp on the eye, the other sharp on the breast spots.

Photographing the Cambridge Peregrines – Part 2

Having recently photographed the Peregrines (Falco peregrinus) that share their time between the few high buildings of Cambridge (see Cambridge Peregrines Part 1), Mrs Sciencebase and myself ventured a little further afield (having had a tipoff from a birder friend about another local pair).

So, this morning we found ourselves in the wastelands of Cherry Hinton the southeastern suburb of the city of Cambridge. We ventured into a local Cambs and Beds Wildlife Trust reserve there that was originally a chalk quarry. Back in the day, the quarry supplied materials for the construction of several of the university buildings.

Mrs Sciencebase spotted first one Peregrine, which flew across the East Pit and then a second that entered and settled on a chalk cliff face, a sight you most definitely wouldn’t expect to see in a Cambridge suburb. I got shots of the second and then moving slightly closer it took flight and alighted on the opposite cliff, basking in the sun for a few moments before flying off in the direction of its partner and out of the pit.