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i think this is a chiffchaff (aka Phylloscopus collybita)…? they’re kind of hard to tell apart between the different types, but relatively common in our garden and around water courses. we caught this one near the ria, perched on a branch a few meters away from us.
the photos were lucky because they’re so tiny and restless, that they don’t keep still for pictures for very long… ?
week 3, rinse and repeat, with a few good things.
– cooked a fantastic corn pancake (玉米烙) that was a huge throwback to our time in china. there was a restaurant in our street that served these with sprinkles and we were practically addicted to them.
– we watched wadjda, and it was a bit of a punch in the gut. saudi arabia sometimes feels as alien as north korea.
– birdhouse #2 has been deployed! we checked the first one, but couldn’t see any birds coming and going. looking forward to the new tenants.
– we voted today in advance of next week’s elections, just to get it done.
now that i have digital a camera with a decent zoom, i’d thought i’d publish some bird photos now and then. :) this is a white wagtail (motacilla alba), and you can find them everywhere in portugal — and indeed, all over europe and asia, though they look slightly different in different regions.
it’s such a common and elegant bird, walking around “wagging” its tail! they’re not too fussy about where they live and are just as common in city streets as they are in the countryside. this youngling was perched on a vine in the fields near olhão, just looking pretty for the photo.
– though we’re still playing catch up with work, things have settled down a bit more this week and i’ve finally had time to sit down and make a plan for the next hsk exam. i’m not sure it’s a feasible plan, but i’ll give it a go. at a rate of 10 new characters per day, i should be ready around… june-ish? we’ll see!
– this week, the boy went up a carob tree and hung the first of the 2 birdhouses my brother made for us some time ago. finally! can’t wait to see which birds will take up residence in birdhouse #1!
– we watched don’t look up, and it was hilarious and sobering. hard not to make parallels with the spectacular job we’re doing to curb climate change, the impending disaster of our time.
– birdwatching was “great” this week though, and spotted 2 new species that both had “great” on their name: one great egret and a few great crested gebre in the sapal of castro marim, which was a really nice place to walk.
– the almond trees are doing their thing!
looking at my goodreads, these were the 14 books i made my way through last year:
some themes definitely pop out — there’s a bit of china stuff, some productivity or time-management, the green brothers new books… and some trashy stuff too that i made my way through as well, in a time when i was just craving distraction. not featured are the many, many fanfics i read in the wee hours of the morning, when i couldn’t sleep.
my trusty old kindle still does the job, and most of these were read on it. a couple were audiobooks, and the get together book was a hardcover freebie from stripe. i’ve just finished the first book of 2022 (meet me at the museum), and i hope this “new year reading energy” lasts for a bit!