Crow (Corvus Corone Cornix)

     

I think this is a young crow. He was sitting there on the fence. I think he looked a bit lost. He stepped back and forth and by and by he stopped to look at me.  Well I don’t know much about crows so I looked up some about them in a book we had on the bookshelf. There was very little information in the book so I checked for more on the net.

I read the following on Wikipedia. It says they are very intelligent. Yes I believe they are. What surprised me was that they can live to 20 years old. Even up to 30 years .  The oldest captive crow died at 59 years of age.

When I was little, about 6-7 years old,  I had heard people talk about tame crows. On a nice summer day I found a young crow in the woods. I brought it home. Unfortunately, to my regret, the crow died after a while. With some knowledge how to take care of it it could actually have stayed with me till now. How about that, eh ? !

Midsummer Eve

We were at friends last night. Such an amazingly wonderful Midsummer Eve. The weather couldn’t have been better. Sunshine from sunrise to sun set. Very, very warm. All together celebrating the midsummer we were ten persons, one cat and four dogs.

     

 We had delicious barbecue dishes, we had sauna bath, we swam in the lake. Yes, one perfect Midsummer Eve.

On the way home we stopped to watch the midsummer bonfire down at “our” lake.

It sure was one of the best midsummer’s eve ever. What more is there to say than; Thank you dear friends for having us there and thank you all for the nice time we had.

Midsummer

Midsummer Eve this year is on Fri 22 June. I just checked the weather forecast. Good. It’s not going to rain.  I hope we will be able to enjoy the sunset around midnight and the sunrise in the morning.

The sun rises in Helsinki at 03:54 am. The sun sets in Helsinki at 22:50 pm. In Lapland, Utsjoki the sun does not set between May 17 and July 26.

I wish you all a nice and safe Midsummer.

Chives

It’s an addiction.

      

I have this old cracked pot of chives on my terrace.

     

I have so many pictures of the flowers already from earlier years. I decided not to take any new ones this year.

 Of course I have been out there on my knees for many days now.

By the way, I do have new pots and am going to buy new plants this week.

@ Sipoo/Sibbo Summer Fair

I said in my post of yesterday I visited the aviation museum on Sunday.  Nope, that was of course on Saturday 😉

Yesterday, Sunday, we visited the Sipoo/Sibbo Summer Fair. If Saturday was gray and drizzling then yesterday was the most wonderful warm and sunny day. Just perfect for a summer fair visit.

    

Sooo many beautiful flowers there are along the roadsides. I wanted to stop and take pictures. After two stops Leif said “enough”.  The yellows are Buttercups (Ranunculus repens) the blue/pink ones are Wild Lupins (Lupinus perennis)

The fair took place at Talma Ski Centre.  The place is not far away from where we live and it is just about 3 km away from our god daughter’s parents. When our son was a kid, in the beginning of the 80’s, we used to go to Talma to ski slalom.

I think there was about 80 exhibitors at the fair. Our god daughter was at work there at the stand for dental care.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-JKlrnkFx8

I stood a long time looking at people jumping the bungee trampoline. There were all ages. Well not really all ages but kids and young people. I shot a short clip of girl who said it’s okay for me to put the clip on my blog. She was really good. Jumping really high up and did flips both back and forth.

After staying at the fair for about two hours we went to visit our god daughter’s mother.  Our god daughter’s  two daughters stayed there the weekend. Such a nice afternoon.

   

In the evening a friend, who was visiting some friends nearby us, was walking their two dogs. She came here and Canelo and I joined them for an evening walk.

No wonder I was tired already at 9 pm and fell asleep at about lap 26 watching the F1 Canada Grand Prix

Visit At The Aviation Museum

National Old Museum Vehicle Day

In honor of the day the motorcycle club “Stadin Pärtsärit” bikers brought their old museum vehicle on display to the museum’s courtyard. This time there were not many bikes. Maybe because of the weather (gray and drizzling) or maybe just because it was  Sunday. So many people are at their summer places. I have seen the bikes for so many times. I left Leif outdoors to chat with the  guys.

I went to visit The Finnish Aviation Museum. I have visited the museum once before about 25 – 27 years ago. Sure was time to make a new visit there.

  

The Entrance                                               Convair 440 Metropolitan

The Convair was in Finnair’s use for the longest career in the history, 27 years.

   

 These ultralight “gliders”  really caught my attention. Look at the seat(s) ! Anyway, I think an ultralight glider requires an ultralight pilot. No es para mí 😀

“My” Woodpecker

             

Today I found out the woodpeckers have babies right there in the tree. I heard the babies beeping loudly already yesterday and the day before but thought they were further up in the tree or even in an other tree.

Today I saw the woodpecker coming with food in her/his beak. The babies screaming in hunger for their food. I now understand that yesterday when I saw the woodpecker sticking her/his head into the hole in the trunk she/he was feeding the babies. They didn’t make any sound because of eating.  And the ra-ta-ta-ta probably came from the other woodpecker somewhere nearby.

Anyway, I think I have enough of pictures of the woodpecker(s).  I leave them to live their life in peace and quiet from me and my camera and wish them all the best for the future.

The Woodpecker

There he was. My woodpecker. At the same time in the morning, the same tree. He had his head in a hole in the tree and was pecking. Then he noticed me. I guess he thought, oh no, the same old, short, fat lady again with her dog and the black thing(=the camera) in her hand 🙂

Dear woodpecker. Just wait and see. Tomorrow I am going to make a third attempt, now  for the perfect picture 😉  I’m going to bring my tripod with me.

 

Nightingale

I have only, so far, been shooting very few video clips with my Canon PowerShot SX230 HS.

For some weeks I have wondered what kind of bird makes the sound you now can hear on my clip.

During my walks I have discussed this with several people. They all say it is a nightingale. I checked on YouTube and yes, they all are right. There were many clips on YouTube of singing nightingales.  After the woodpecker I was walking further down the road by the lake when I hear the bird singing and shoot a clip.  Just a simple clip to try out the camera.

Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major

Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major

When on my morning walk with Canelo I saw two of these woodpeckers in a tree just to the right of me.  Well, it was not that early morning anymore as it was at about 9:30. Anyway, I had my pocket camera in my pocket (always have) and I tried to as easy as possible wiggle it out from there and turn it on. Canelo is so used to that I stop to take pictures. He was just sitting there very still and quietly. The birds in the tree intensely following my doings. As soon as I was ready and lifted my camera to shoot they both flew away.

       

Oh, now what ? Yeah, either I go or I wait. I decided to wait. After about 4 minutes waiting the other one returned. He sat down a bit higher this time. All the time keeping an eye on me and my doings. I was able to shoot 8-10 pictures then he got annoyed and left.

I was surfing the net for the great spotted woodpecker. Oh my goodness there are plenty, plenty absolutely wonderful pictures.  Seeing all the great pictures I really was very unsure of me at all putting up “my woodpecker” here. Complaining to my husband about my bad pictures he said just stop complaining they are not that bad.

Okay then,  I think they are good enough. I shot all the pictures in landscape mode as the one at the top. Portrait mode would have been better. I just didn’t dare making any kind of movements to scare the bird away. The tree other pictures I have cropped from landscape mode.

These birds really can make terrible loud sound when sitting up on the top of a lamp pole on the metal lamp cap 🙂