The quail are fine, but it feels like the universe is out to get them. Overnight some uncontrolled dog tried to dig under the cage. There’s a print of a big-dog paw in the freshly disturbed dirt. Too many folks around here don’t control their dogs closely.
Looks like we have a few days coming up that’ll fill the water tank, give the garden a good wetting and be fairly windy but no too cold.
Kiwis: I love the wall dots from HappyMoose and now the price has dropped a heap:
we used to charge $29.95 for a set of four 15x15cm wall dots. Now you’ll pay just $19.47.
Here’s a not great photo of my latest lot above my bed.
Sunset’s gift.
Tom Scott’s latest NZ video: Testing A Zip Line That Goes Round Corners (5 mins) is another good one.
I had fun with Rotorua’s Canopy Tours zipline through native forest in 2013, (no corners). Photo: Me dangling from a zipline after finally unclenching my hands from the rope.
Overnight gales opened up the quail runs and I feared the worst at dawn when I saw the problem. Glee was sitting just outside and scuttled back in when I approached. Fliss was nearby and fortunately easy to catch. The other two hadn’t escaped. Whew! Secured now.
Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors is a brilliant documentary, full of science, motion capture, 3D printing, laser scanning, genetics, forensic reconstruction. If you like science, watch it. I’ve seen Episode 1 so far. Via RNZ Saturday Morning
Two new pest traps installed:
- Peanut butter on mousetrap inside catproof box for inside the Cat Palace.
- Egg inside weasel / stoat trap.
🤞
The dogs have reason to be glad I use Keyboard Maestro.
This Micro Monday I’d like to suggest you follow these folks currently in Aotearoa New Zealand 🇳🇿. Because they’re Kiwis, so you know they’re good. 😇
This is very disturbing — look at the videos: Samsung’s Creepy New AI Can Generate Talking Deepfakes From a Single Image.
NZ’s first known war dog to receive posthumous medal 🐶
Ceaser left this country … in February 1916.
The dog carried a satchel on his back which contained writing paper and bandages.
“He dug an air-hole so the trapped man could breath, … and saved that man’s life.”
Whew. Now I’ve made 100 days for my longest move streak I can relax if I break it.
Cropped and auto-enhanced, but these two quail photos are from the NatureWatch Camera I just set up, using a Raspberry Pi Zero. Very happy with these results. Now to work on placement. I’d like to get wildlife rather than just the quail. This may be Fliss.
Excited that @brentsimmons has put up an early version of the NetNewsWire 5 RSS reader. It’s been a long time since I last used it but it feels great to have it back on my Mac. Congratulations Brent!
This selfie isn’t up to much but it was one of the first (handheld in low light) shots with my new Raspberry Pi Zero W and 5MP camera. The gear arrived today. The instructions were flawless. Tomorrow I aim to install it in a plastic enclosure and set it up by the quail.
And so they should!
British newspaper The Guardian announced a style guide change. From now on, they will prioritise terms such as ‘climate crisis or breakdown’ and ‘global heating’ over the more common ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’.
Stoats, the quail killers
About 1,000 years ago the only land mammals in New Zealand were bats. Then Māori arrived, maybe around 1200AD and brought with them kurī (Polynesian dogs) and kiore (Polynesian rats). Europeans started arriving from around 1642 (Abel Tasman) and since then exotic flora and fauna have flooded in, at enormous cost to native species.
One example is the stoat (or weasel) that killed 3 of my quail this week:
Stoats belong to the same mustelid family of animals as weasels and ferrets. They’re bigger than weasels and smaller than ferrets. Stoats were introduced to New Zealand in the 1884 to control rabbits and hares. Scientists and bird-lovers warned that they would be a danger to our native birds, but their warnings were ignored.
So, for 400 years now all kinds of insects, animals and birds have been wreaking havoc on New Zealand's native species (not to mention the effects of people). Predator Free 2050 aims to restore New Zealand’s natural taonga, economy and primary sector
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Rats, stoats, and possums kill approximately 25 million native birds every year. They are the most damaging mammalian predators that threaten New Zealand’s natural taonga, economy and primary sector.
Unfortunately, the one I caught got away. But I've baited my GoodNature trap and hope I can get the killer that cut my quail flock in half.
In 2016 I made a video of one of my original quail crowing. Unlike California Quail who seem to say Chicago, Chicago! the Japanese Quail say Look at me! Look at me! Volume up.
A couple of minutes in to Brooklyn Nine-Nine S01E01 I thought I’d hate the show, but so many people said such good things about it I stuck with it. It quickly became one of my favourites, with so many excellent laughs! Glad it’s been renewed for a seventh season.