h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You just pipped me at the post there Wazungu. I was about to post these addresses to you when your message appeared. I thought, why should I expect you to do all the work. I can look too. Perhaps you've already come across them, but just in case you haven't:

New Zealand Conservation
http://www.doc.govt.nz/cons/native/

World Wildlife Fund
http://www.worldwildlife.org/

The National Council for Science and the Environment
http://www.cnie.org/nle/biodv-26b.html#Threat of Harmful Non-Native Species

EE Link Endangered Species
http://eelink.net/EndSpp/endangeredspecies-mainpage.html

This GM business worries me. I'm certainly not anti-science. It seems to me that anyone who expresses concern over the GM issue is immediately labelled a luddite or a wishy-washy, anti-science, new-age, ignoramus. I have to say I don't really understand why the government and the pro-GM lobby don't understand our very real and specific concerns. It appears to me that they're being deliberately obtuse. Why are they trying to hood-wink us into believing that a small gap between GM and non-GM crops will stop cross-pollination? Do they think we're all complete blithering idiots? They must do, mustn't they?

Walter's place sounds fabulous. I like my home but it's not exactly what you might call exotic. Sometime I see some fairly rare birds in my garden. Wrens nest in my trees some years. A couple of years ago there was a tree-creeper nesting in a tree right by my living-room window. My brother, who lives a few miles away from here gets woodpeckers and owls in his garden. One thing I haven't seen for about 4 years and really miss, is bats. I used to see them in the garden from time to time and there were lots of them in a particular clump of trees where I walk the dogs.

The birds in this locality are all too capable of waking me up with their dawn chorus. Mustn't grumble!

Gooday Wazungu and Mugwump,

It seems like we are kindred spirits in respect to these issues. Wazungu, I envy you the Martins, but in a few weeks our swallows will arrive and everything will be okay. The Pelican did talk to us too, in her/his special way. The dawn chorus this morning was stupendous, and it is a lot better than waking up to an alarm clock. Tasmania remains one of the last, great unspoiled places on earth, clean air, water and soil. I think that one of the reasons for this is the lack of heavy development and industry; we are essentially a rural State with a small population (400,000 plus). If you have time, check us out on www.tas.gov.au and especially the 'virtual' tour. Take care both,

Walter.

Good evening Walter,
those are probably our swallows, deserting us for the winter! The martins are decorating the windows even as I type.

Three nests this year, that's one up on last year. Its great when they return each year.

PS I will check out the tour.

Salamander, did you hear radio 4 this morning, discussing the recent research finding that there's a 20% drop in recorded species of bees, beetles, butterflies and dragonflies in Worcestershire over the last 100 years? They mentioned the foodchain factor. Tomorrow they're reporting the findings on birds.
Thanks for the links, I'll have a look over the weekend.

I didn't hear the radio 4 programme. A 20% loss in that small range of insect species in the last 100 years sounds less bad than the sort of figure I would expect. Thinking about the changes in agriculture: use of pesticides and herbicides, loss of habitat like hedgerows and wood land, mechanisation - a 20% loss seems modest. It makes you wonder how complete a record of those species was kept 100 years ago. I was just telling Walter about the garden bird survey in Leicestershire that indicated the song thrush faced extinction locally and that nationally, the population had decreased by 50% over just 25 years.

I've taken part of the Tasmanian tour (so far). It's good. I clicked on the loud-speaker icon hoping to hear what a thylacine sounded like but it just told me how to pronounce "thylacine". If they haven't got a recording of a thylacine's bark (or whatever noise it made), it's too late to get one now - although, according to the this source, there are still occasional sightings. It'll probably turn out to be like the sightings reported of the Lochness Monster or the Yeti (or the honest politician).

I wasn't working today so I missed the radio programme, I don't set the alarm on days off and the Martins at the back aren't big enough to wake me. I don't know how they grow fast enough to fly off for winter sometimes, they seem so late hatching. But I caught a mention later of a survey the RSPB is doing on birds nesting on/in houses which you can print out from their website. Now I have a printer, bought today to do posters for our Millenium Fete and Tug of War 2000 competition, I can have a go with it.

Walter, if you call by again, are you celebrating the Millenium in Tasmania?

Gooday Wazungu, and Salamander the Mugwump,

I do love those nicknames - they are nicknames, aren't they? For the most part, the quasi Millennium was celebrated last year in this country, notwithstanding the efforts of people like me to persuade the majority that it doesn't actually commence until 1 January 2001. So no, virtually nothing on the celebratory front this year, although that may change as we get closer to the end of the year. Our main celebration preparations are currently for the Olympic Games, and the centenary of Federation (which falls next year). But I noticed that my old home village of Earls Colne has laid claim to England's first Millennium village green. Take care both,

Walter.

G'day both.
(I had a friend who always objected to being called "both".)

What nickname?

We're celebrating right through from 1/1/2000 to 1/1/2001.If you can't decide which, then do the lot. By here I mean this village, not England. I don't think we can claim any firsts however.

Do you have New Zealand flatworms in Tasmania? They were imported here in the '60s to much consternation. Salamander mentioned them earlier.
Salamander,I found an article on them saying that adding plenty of "organic" matter to the garden will save the eathworm population. Also asking not to be sent samples of flatworms for identification as they don't do too well in the post. If it looks like a severely half flattened, dark coloured worm, doesn't have a sucker, (in which case its a leech), and you've never seen anything like it before - its a New Zealand flatworm. (They say.)Apparently they're endemic in Scotland, N.Ireland, Isle of Man and Liverpool.

Walter of Colne sounds like a knight errant and Wazungu sounds, well, African. I've tried it out loud, and it has a very nice ring to it. I hope it doesn't occur to anyone to shorten my name to Sal the Mug. Why did you call your friend "both", by the way? S/he wasn't a split personality by any chance?

Your village must have a lot of excess energy to be able to celebrate for a whole year. Do the villagers wake up with a hangover every morning? Our village is making a millennium walk along the route of an old railway track (the trains and rail were done away with several decades ago - a loss that caused all villagers who worked outside the village at that time, to buy a car and learn to drive). And our sports field's getting a millennium pavilion. I hope you won't jump on me and give me a verbal thumping but, when the village elders were seeking ideas, not being a religious person, I suggested that since every day was a bi-millennium of a date 2000 years ago and since the particular 2000ish year anniversary they were about to celebrate was actually an unknown date, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. But in any case, they didn't listen to me and, to be honest, I like any excuse to celebrate so I'm not complaining.

I didn't realise those New Zealand flatworms were still causing problems. It makes sense though. When rabbits were first introduced into Britain, they fared quite badly to start with. Our heavy, damp clay soils didn't suit them at all. They were used to a drier, lighter, sandier soil and they almost died out. But good old natural selection came to the rescue. A hardier bunny that could cope with heavy damp soils was left after all the soft southern bunnies died out. And boy, did it go forth and multiply! So maybe those flatworms are going to take a while to settle in, but once they do - watch out the rest of Britain. I'll bear the organic matter in mind if they reach the borders of Leicestershire but so far, they seem to be progressing southward very slowly. I wonder if they make worm casts. If not, the golfers will love them. Golf clubs (to my disgust) go to great trouble to poison and kill the earth worms - then they have to use a special piece of equipment to punch holes in the course to aid drainage because there are no worms to do it for them.

Gooday Wazungu and Salamander the Mugwump,

Hey StM, I would not dream of abbreviating your name. Yes, Wazungu has real oomphy African flavour, but Mugwump, that too is super-cool, it sounds as if it belongs in Jabberwocky, where many of my favourite words are to be found. As for Walter of Colne sounding like a knight errant - I have to tell you there has been plenty of errant but precious little knight. 'Both': as an alternative, I do like the USA 'y'all' but can't do it justice when saying it. In Australia 'youse' is common (in every sense of the word).

Can't add to the chat on flatworms, but will investigate over the weekend. And just catching up on the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) thread - forget the reported sightings, they have been extinct for some sixty-odd years, another casualty of 'progress'. There have been some sensational-type reports here recently that scientists and genetic engineers are experimenting with 'cloning' a Thylacine from an embryo preserved in a jar! Will we soon be able to put even Humpty Dumpty back together again? I read an article the other day about Passenger Pigeons; apparently their flocks used to 'darken the skies' of America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but by the turn of this century they were extinct. Passenger Pigeons yesterday, Song Thrushes tomorrow. It would be all too depressing were it not for the three parrots that came and chatted to me and Ben the Vandal on our walk this morning. No Pelican today, but some increasingly friendly Black Swans, and an aloof group of Oyster Catchers. And only a week or so to the return of the Swallows. Take care and haveagoodweekend BOTH,

Walter.

Hi yous <-English version,

I love Oyster Catchers. In Aberdeen they fly down the middle of the main street in the city centre peeppeep-p-peep-peeping their heads off. Protesting at buses, cars, streams of people - nothing is too big for them to scold.
One week today and I'll be on Barra, in the Outer Hedrides. Oyster catchers, curlew, redshanks, buzzards, empty white sand beaches, blue sea....
But I wish we had parrots too. When I was 8 we spent 6 months in Australia. I remember walking to school past a field scattered with grey rocks. Out of the corner of my eye I saw all these rocks rise into the air, sort themselves into a nice straight line and land neatly along the telegraph line. And half of them turned pink.

Wazungu is swahili, it's also wrong as its plural. It should be Mzungu but it would be too confusing to change now. Walter of Colne has a very Old English ring to it.

I read about the Thylacine cloning. It would be something to bring back a species but pointless if it has no habitat or not enough to create a sustainable gene pool.

Re "Both"- no split personalities, there were two of them at the time, both being called both, as if they came as a package.

StM, (StM better than Sal the Mug?), we're not celebrating every night! Just each month, more or less. And some of the celebrations involve no alcohol. Quite the opposite - the Millenium fun run - very healthy, the Millenium Potato competition, the imminent Millenium tug-of-war...well actually there might be hangovers after that one. I like your Millenium Walk. None of our efforts will result in anything permanent, exept the Ash Roots Book maybe and hopefully some of the trees we've planted.
I think we missed the religious 2000 by a few years. Its just an excuse for bonfires and fireworks and potato competitions.

Gooday again, Wazungu,

So the name is plural - the 'both' fits, then! It still has a nice ring to it. Whereabouts in Oz did you live, and how long ago? The 'grey rocks' were Galahs, great parrots: there is a colony of them near to my place. They are not native to Tasmania but this flock apparently sprang from a pair of 'pets' that escaped from captivity many years ago. I hadn't thought about Walter of Colne being Old Englishy sounding, but yes, it fits on both counts. But enough of that - tell me more, please, about your forthcoming trip to the Outer Hebrides. Does that mean you will be off line for a week; if so, how will me and StM cope?!! And sorry, I have to ask: what is a potato competition? Take care,

The Old English one.

G'day y'all. It's a scorcher today so I've come in to take shelter from the heat. The buddleia in my front garden is starting to come into bloom and it's smothered in butterflies. When it cools down a couple of degrees I might take out a glass of gin and tonic with 3 ice cubes and a slice of lemon and just sit and watch them. Have you been aware of all the recent fuss about ragwort (noxious weed of this and all surrounding parishes)? I just noticed when I took the dogs out that the butterflies seem to love that too.

No objections to StM - much better than Sal the Mug, thank you. Jabberwocky is one of my very favourite movies. I must've seen it a dozen times and it still has me in stitches: the trapper (T Jones) looking all surprised and shocked with his face and head still intact but just skeleton from the neck down, Mr Fishfinger's daughter Grizelda eating her potato, Dennis (M Palin) wrecking the blacksmith's workshop, the esquire (H Corbit) splatted under the landlords bed. Brilliant. 'Spect I've spelt some of the names wrong.

I'd be surprised if the technology for cloning a thylacine from the pickled embryo exists yet. It's one thing to clone a sheep from fresh tissue but the dna in a specimen that's been preserved in alcohol or formaldehyde for 60 years is going to pretty badly fragmented, I should think. They wanted to bring back the African quagga (wild ass closely related to the zebra) using dna harvested from a stuffed foal. In the end they tried to get it back by selectively breeding certain zebras that displayed quagga-like traits. I'm with you on this - what's the point? Humans drove these animals to extinction. Who are they bringing them back for? Not for the animals themselves, that's for sure. If they succeeded, the poor animals would just be lab specimens. If the extinction issue worries those people, they should be doing what they can to preserve the species we still have, that are currently teetering on the brink of extinction.

Lucky you, Wazungu, going to Barra. We have a family friend who was born on Barra. Gaelic was her first language. She told me that when she was a child, people from the mainland were avoided, not because the islanders were standoffish, but because they were afraid of getting diseases to which they had no resistance. You might spot a Lesser Yellow Underwing moth while you're there. We get the lighter ones here in England (Triphaena comes) but on Barra there's a very dark variant called "curtisii" as well as the "comes" that we get here. Will you go by ferry? You might see some basking sharks and whales on the trip. Hope so. Hope you have a lovely time.

Don't Australians use "galah" as a sort of insult? It would be nice to have those exotic birds here, but I'd be quite satisfied with the ones we have if we could just have more of them. My personal favourite exotic birdie is the pelican. I spent an afternoon watching them on a pier in Florida one holiday and they were so naughty. They kept stealing the fishermen's bait and catches. The fishermen didn't seem to see the funny side at all. Some people just have no sense of humour, do they? I'm also very fond of sea gulls. I know they're a bunch of ill-mannered thugs but I live in the midlands now and they remind me of the sea, which I miss quite badly.

Gooday to you Walter, and it is day, just about, for once.

It was Canberra for six months in 1964. We emigrated, and unemigrated, and spent eight weeks at sea altogether in doing so! I only saw Sydney Harbour, pre the Chook House I think, and Canberra. But also the Galahs, (I'd forgotten their name), Budgies, Kookaburra, wattle trees and a Possum.It ran over the corrugated iron part of the roof of the house one night. What a din! What a commotion, we all ran out to see what on earth was happening.

The potato competition shouldn't be that exciting. Not unless there's been cheating - in which case...
Everyone entering was given 5 potatoes, all the same variety, to grow. Sometime in September they'll be dug up and brought to the village hall. There they'll be inspected, to make sure they're the right variety, and weighed. There's a handsome(?) prize for heaviest potato, biggest potato, heaviest crop, another category which I can't remember (or imagine) and "best dressed", I'll let you know what that means when I find out. I'll be entering mine for "most pathetic attempt" since I never got them planted.
Latest reports are that they're growing like runner beans. Excitement is growing. Certain people are being very cagey about their progress and misleading advice on when to plant them may have been given.

This time next week I'll be watching Barra growing on the horizon from the ferry on the Minches. 10 hours driving and 6 hours sailing but well worth it. I will be offline and onbeach but probably not sunbathing.
I had a look at your Tasmania site, it looks beautiful there. Barra has the same white beaches.

Gooday Wazungu and StM,

Have I told you how much I look forward to and enjoy chatting with you? No? Well please consider yourselves told. Yes, 'Galah' is a form of Oz insult, although why that should be so I have no idea - I would regard it as a compliment, but then I'd regard almost anything as a compliment. And StM, I don't want to bung it on, but Ben the Vandal and me saw the Pelican again today down on the Bay. We were feeding the ducks and the Pelican just came swooping in, sploshed down a few feet away and watched proceedings with detached interest. And we love the seagulls; you are absolutely right, they are a quarrelsome lot, but they sure can provide a lot of entertainment and enjoyment.

Wazungu, your past pretty-well makes you an honorary Australian! I know what you mean by possums on the roof, but they are wonderful creatures even if they can get pretty mischievous. We haven't got any at our new place, but at the last one we used to feed them apples most evenings and if we were late they sometimes actually scratched at the doors or windows to get our attention. When we first moved in to the old place, a neighbour asked for my permission to shoot possums on my land! And rabbits. I think it was because we were a firearm, trap and poison-free zone that our place became such a haven for wildlife. I'm no fan of rabbits, but I'll put up with the holes and the devastated plants, and the little ones are seriously cute. Ben chases the rabbits at our new place, but him being a Labrador and them being bunnies he has no show of catching them, but it is a hoot watching him make the attempt. When you were in Canberra, did you ever see the great flocks of Budgies? I guess that many people would not perhaps realise that in their natural state, Budgies fly around in flocks of hundreds if not thousands. I may be odd (in fact everyone assures me that I am), but the potato competition sounds like great fun and I can imagine how people would easily get into the swing of it. For now, take care y'all,

Walter.

Gooday again StM,

I nearly forgot: I can't think of any better way to enjoy a gin and tonic, but wondered if three ice cubes is one too many. I guess it depends on the size of the ice cubes, and the size of the glass. Do you have a favourite gin - I'm addicted to Gordons. Whoops, are we allowed to do product endorsements? Take care,

Walter.

Your village sounds very villagey Wazungu. We have our Annual Horticulture and Craft Show in 2 weeks time and a sort of "trench-mentality" sets in with some of the competitors. It's all taken very seriously. I'd hate to be one of the judges. I have a Produce Show Entry Form on my window sill but I won't be entering anything - the slugs make those difficult decisions for me, month in advance.

I agree with you, Walter. It's lovely to sit round the (virtual) camp fire chatting with congenial company. Pelicans look amazing when they're gliding - almost like planes. If you see them at a distance you could almost believe they were pterosaurs. I'm glad you like seagulls too. Have you noticed that noise they make as they fly overhead. It sounds as though they're laughing (probably at us). We used to have budgies in cages when I was a child. Do people keep them in cages in the country where they fly in flocks? I have a feeling that people wouldn't be so keen on caging them if they could see them in their natural state.

Yes, I do like Gordons and another favourite is White Satin. I've carried out exhaustive studies before concluding that 3 ice cubes (medium) is perfect and one slice of fresh lemon.

Hello both,
StM I missed your last posting when I last replied - I wasn't ignoring it. I know what you mean about missing the sea. I've seen porpoises from the Barra ferry. Once on a boat trip out to Mingulay, when the sea was pretty rough and waves were picking up the back of the boat and shooting it forward like a mini roller coaster, I caught a glimpse of a very large dark shape just under the waves behind us. Thats all I saw, I don't know what it was.
BTW StM did you try the waterholes link from my page to the Africams website? They now have a new Whale watching camera. While I'm typing this in notebook I've got the Whale cam window open along side, it looks out over Hermanus Bay in SA and every 15 esconds I get a new picture of deep blue sea and breaking waves. Not the real thing but still beautiful to watch. No whales yet this morning but I saw some yesterday. I just stopped to check the other cameras, there are springbok drinking at the Etosha waterhole and a Nyala in long grass on the Hluhluwe game drive. Its just updated, now they're watching a zebra.
Maybe this is how I missed your post yesterday - writing with these distractions can take a long time. I'll look out for the moths on Barra.

Walter, an Honorary Australian! Thats a real honour, I wouldn't mind being Australian. And I hadn't even told you my Grandfather was born there - but he was brought back to Scotland as a child after his father died. He, my great grandfather I mean, emmigrated from the Orkneys. I'm enjoying talking to you and StM here too, I love the image of Ben and the Pelican. When I first started on h2g2 I actually started writing guide entries - now there's not enough time! I saw Budgies but not in great numbers. We really never went out of Canberra itself as far as I can remember. A lost opportunity considering all I now know is there to see.

I will keep you posted on the potato competition.

StM I've done it again! I spent 20 minutes on that last post, with all the distractions, only to find when I posted it I'd missed another of yours. It is a villagey sort of village on the whole. I can't offer an opinion on the ice cubes as gin isn't something I've tried. What am I missing?

BTW I've sent the RSPB an e-mail to ask if they have any research on the effects of pet cats. I'll let you know of any answer.