Fowl Spectators





























































A marabou stork struts casually onto the field in a World Cup qualifier match between Kenya and Morocco, Nairobi, Kenya, 2005.



An  owl swoops into the stadium, halting the match between Finland and Belgium for 8 minutes during a Euro 2008 qualifying match at Helsinki Olympic Stadium. As everyone stands around bewilderedly, wondering what to do, the owl launches from one goal, nonchalantly flying down the pitch, only to take up place upon the crossbar of the goal at the other end.

A spanner in the works





The door to my mind / forlorn fishing nets / dual 'Persona' /Naval Star gazing

It feels like lately I have been swamped by a deluge of swedish vocabulary, verb tenses and other such thrilling components which make up the untamable beast known as svenska. It is not as bad as it sounds, in fact, I thoroughly enjoy learning languages; nothing is so satisfying as drunkenly rambling in another language and people being able to understand you, as my friends and I discovered on saturday night. While my previous party trick may have been exclaiming 'How did I get so drunk?' in swedish, I am now able to give a detailed description of this inevitable demise.
Last night I prepared for my final swedish test by watching Ingmar Bergman's Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) without subtitles. Judging by todays effort in my listening comprehension, it was perhaps not the most suitable method of practice, but in any respects the most engrossing. I am satisfied by the fact that I understood enough to figure out the plot lines.


The above film still is not from Smultronstället but another Bergman film, Persona, featuring the same actresses, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin. I have always liked the director who has a stable of trusted actors whose names become synonymous with the directors own.

I am also now completely intrigued by star charts, islands and fishing nets, to add to the ever growing list of 'things that inspire me that I really should do something about'. These include birds, faux bois, whittling, and such like. A collection of "things" laid out like in the positions of stars / faux bois embroidered stockings / balancing bird Alexander Calder-esque mobiles / whittled bath feet / tunnels of fishing net / on an island?

It all makes me feel rather intrepid. I definitely have more exploring to do in the coming warmer climes.
Spend my winter thinking, and my summer doing.

The mind boggles.

A whiteness of swans





Suddenly found myself surrounded by feathered fellows on my first Swedish/winter christmas.
Metal Swedish bird decoration circa 1970's / drawing of a Tui by my father / coloured paper peacock decoration.


different names for groups of different birds:

A raft, flock, colony, covey, dissimulation, fleet, flight, parcel, pod, volery, sedge, chain, bellowing, wake, tok, mews, peep, brood, cletch clutch, clattering, chattering, cover, commotion, covert, rasp, swarm, gulp, hover, murder, muster, parcel, storytelling, head, herd, trip, dole, dule, piteousness, pitying, prettying, dopping, plump, padding, team, fling, convocation, mob, cast, charm, trembing, stand, wedge, gaggle, nide, skein, drum, troubling, lek, pack, bazaar, confusion, screech, aerie, kettle, moulting, screw, stream, seige, hedge, rookery, train, band, party scold, deceit, desert, exaltation, ascension, bevy, tiding, tittering, tribe, congregation, lute, flush, puddling, sute, sord, richness, watch, parliament, stare, company, pandemonium, psittacosis, bew, warren, muster, pride, ostentation, creche, huddle, bouquet, Nye, pheasants, kit, loft, bunch, rush, knob, run, conspiracy, unkindness, crowd, building, clamour, hill, sea, cloud, squabble, doading, exultation, walk, wisp, host, quarrel, ubiquity, numeration, scourge, phalanx, eyrar, bank, drift, game, lamentation, sownder, squadron, whiteness, whiting, diving, spring, mutation, raffle, rafter, coil, trip, fall, descent.