Walked over to The MAC in the late afternoon –
Midlands Arts Center. It’s my favorite place to find out what’s happening in
the arts scene in the greater Birmingham area. They always have lots of brochures,
and I often come across things I’d like to go and see. They have both theatrical
productions and international, as well as current release, films (the
concession price – that’s for older persons, like me – is £5).
Not bad. (Next week Leah and I are going there to see Anna Karenina with Keira
Knightley, Jude Law and Kelly MacDonald.) For example, their highlighted pick
for the month of September is Searching for Sugar Man, winner of the Special
Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. (I come 4154 nautical
miles/7698.2 kilometers/4783.5 miles from home and what do I find? A screening
of a film I hosted up the canyon last January – right here, in my own backyard.
How crazy is that?!)
Saw quite a few squeerels scrambling about, stuffing
their cheeks with chestnuts. Must be Fall – though leaves have yet to get the
message. I also spied some perky little baby moorhens swimming frantically
through the water towards their parent. For cute . . . but wait! Isn’t it only
in the spring when baby birds make their appearance? I’m so confused.
Thought you’d appreciate a little update on the
bird watching I’ve been able to do, seeing as how I am such an avid birder,
having brought my binocs along with me all this way and all. Well, let’s see,
I’ve seen a lot of crows, magpies, mourning doves and pigeons (known
affectionately as “rats of the sky”). See them right outside my window, every
day. That’s it basically. Oh, yeah, a couple others I forgot – Canada geese and
several varieties of ducks, coots, and grebes when I’m near a park.
[Now here’s something ironic for you: Just now,
having written this, I went down to the laundry room where the lodgers’ frig is
and who should walk in and greet me but Philip Sr. We have really only spoken once, just
briefly, but this time we chatted congenially for several minutes. I discovered for one thing that he has
a family of two boys, 7 and 10, back in Cambridge. Also of interest is that when I
told him that I hailed from Utah, what that brought to his mind – resurrected
from when he was a kid, he admitted – was an image of the Bonneville Salt Flats
and speed racers. Funny, huh? Whereas the younger Phil had not heard of Brigham Young University, Philip the professor definitely had. But here’s the rub – in our conversation somehow
we got around to the subject of birds (don’t ask me how THAT happened!) and Philip said that just this morning he had seen a stork, standing in the middle of the lawn, in the back garden (you know
that photo from yesterday?!). OUR back garden! What?!! And here I was telling
you about how there is nothing interesting to see by way of birds, and this
sneaky creature goes and makes his appearance – right in my own backyard, and
right when I’m not watching. For the love!]
*Correction: Myfanwy tells me that, actually, it is NOT a stork but rather a blue heron, and that it sits in the tallest tree, an oak, in our mutual back garden and peers down into her neighbor's small littlepool - waiting for . . . the random fish? Obviously she has extensive experience with this particular heron.
Photos_
1- the mac (not talkin’ McDonalds here!)
2- the ever elusive squeerel (believe it or not, for the speed
of a squirrel, and the inefficiency of my dumb little digital, I was lucky to
get this at all, as poor as it is!)
3- quack
