Tag: Nature

Nominated For a Blogger Recognition Award

My official response to being nominated for a blogger recognition award.

INTRODUCTION

My thanks to thetshirtblogger for nominating for a blogger recognition award. This post is my official response to that nomination. This is the tshirtblogger’s own description of what they do:

The Tee Shirt Blogger focuses on diversity in the main, and rather the celebration of diversity, in many ways it is no different to my other blogs, l love the intrinsic rawness and freshness that eclecticism offers us in life for all the good, bad and of course downright ugly.

ABOUT ASPI.BLOG

I blog about a wide range of stuff, with my principal interests being cricket, public transport, nature, science, politics, autism and photography. Nearly all the posts that I produce feature some of my photographs, and this one will be no exception. As branch secretary of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk and an autistic person I have strong opinions on autism and they way in which autistic people are treated, and this frequently comes into the blog. When I share something from another source I will always acknowledge that fact, and link to my original source. If I make an error in a blog post I will correct it, and give the correction at least as much prominence as the initial error had (for an example of me calling myself out go here). For more detail please visit my page “About Aspiblog“.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE – BIRDS

These were taken on Monday:

Cormorant posingMixed birdsCormorantMixed birds 2lapwing and gullFlying cormorantSwimming cormorantdiving cormorantswimming cormorant IIblackbird in treeGulllapwingFlying birdsBlackbird II

ADVICE FOR NEW BLOGGERS

  1. Your blog is yours – blog the way you want to.
  2. Visit lots of other blogs and leave likes and comments – this helps you get noticed and increases the number of people who read your blog.

MY NOMINEES

I could just list my 10 nominees, but I actually going to say something about each of them as well. 

  1. Fargaregardsanna. Anna’s pet subjects include nature, her home town of Trosa and her artwork. As a sample of her work I give this recent post titled “Save Trosa nature – Behåll och stärk Trosas natur“, which features a picture she created based on a comment of mine:
  2. Cindy Knoke. Cindy is a photographer with a great interest in nature. Her most recent post is titled “Punto Tombo~“.
  3. Ioinvaggio. An Italian blog which regularly features lovely pictures. I give you a link to a post titled “Io sono Volpina Blu”
  4. The remaining nominees all have some connection to autism, starting with stimtheline, and by way of an introduction I give you “8 Favorite Quotes About Autism“
  5. Autism is my Superpower. I was introduced to this blog by someone I will be mentioning later. I point you to the same post that was my introduction to the blog “Environmental (Over)Consciousness“
  6. Yarn and Pencil. This blog covers autism, sensory issues, knitting and various other stuff. As an introduction I offer you “Dunster Castle“.
  7. Autism Mom. An excellent blog about one family’s experience with autism. I have an additional reason for including this one – to show that autistic people do not object in principle to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing about their children – we object to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing in a way that contributes to the ‘othering’ of autistic people. Thus the post to which I link to introduce you to this blog is the self-explanatory titled “I Want to be Called Autistic“.
  8. International Badass Activists. This was American Badass Advocates, run by Eve Hinson, when I started following. It has since become first American Badass Activists and then International Badass Activists, while Eve Hinson has become Eve Reiland. I have been introduced to many interesting and important stories by this blog. As an introduction here is her Autistic Union Pledge.
  9. The Unabashed Autist. Although I am nominating this blog, I must also mention that its creator, Alison, also has a creativity blog called Alison Wonderland that is not to be missed. For my introductory post, here is one she put up yesterday titled ““Elaine, do you think I would go willy-nilly into a situation so obviously fraught with potential complications?”“
  10. Finally, we come to thesilentwaveblog. This splendid blog is run by Laina, who also has blog specifically for sharing aspergian/autistic writing called Laina’s Collection. As an introduction to thesilentwaveblog I give you my all-time favourite from that site, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Neurotypicality“.

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE TWO:
MUSCOVY DUCKS

Group shotgrey and blackFourtwoBrownbrown profileblackBrown fron onBrown and blackWhiteThreeWhite II

PARTCIPATION IN THE BLOGGER RECOGNITION AWARD

These are the requirements for those who wish to participate in the Blogger Recognition Award:

1. Show your gratitude to the person who nominated you and provide a link back to the person’s blog.
2. Give a brief story on your blog.
3. Share two or more pieces of advice for beginner bloggers.
4. Choose 10 other bloggers to nominate. 
5. Comment on each blog, letting them know they’ve been nominated and provide a link to your award post.

I will shortly be attending to number 5!

Blogger recognition award

 

 

 

Save Trosa nature – Behåll och stärk Trosas natur

An excellent and important post from Anna, with some sp;lendid infogđraphics/memes/drawings – please read and share!

Anna's avatarAnnas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

Läs detta före 9 januari 2018, så har du chansen att bidra till att bevara och stärka Trosas natur.

Read this before January 9 2018 of you want to participate in the efforts to save Trosa nature.


Du har antagligen redan läst att 2017 uppmätte de högsta medeltemperaturerna någonsin (sen vi människor klarat att mäta de värdena). I SvD uttalade sig professor Johan Rockström och sade följande: “Om vi ska kunna leverera på Parisavtalet får vi inte chansa. Om planetens förmåga att buffra våra utsläpp går ner måste vi minska våra utsläpp ännu snabbare.” Han sade också “Vad vi gör de kommande fem åren blir avgörande för klimatets framtid”.

You have probably already read about how 2017 was the warmest year ever since mankind started to measure temps. In the Swedish newspaper SvD the professor Mr Johan Rockström said “If we’re gonna live up to Paris agreement we can’t take…

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Some Suggestions Re Public Transport

Some thoughts on public transport, prompted in part by Lord Adonis’ resignation statement.

INTRODUCTION

The timing of this post is due to the resignation statement of Lord Adonis, a man who I have very little in common with, but who hits the nail on the head with his resignation statement, which you can read in full, courtesy of The Guardian, here (an excerpt is reproduced below, courtesy of twitter):

adonisresig

EAST COAST FRANCHISE LOWLIGHTS

The first time the East Coast Franchise hit difficulties, it was being run by National Express. The then government took it into public ownership, albeit with the (stupid) rider that it be reprivatised as soon as it was back in the black. On reprivatisation it passed into the hands of Virgin Trains, run by a combination of tax exile Richard Branson and the Stagecoach Group (as a non-driver who lives in Norfolk I know them too well and like them too little for comfort). The East Coast Franchise is now back in trouble, and the current transport secretary, Chris ‘Failing’ Grayling, as well as being a strong contender in the ‘most incompetent minister ever’ contest is such a ‘private good, public bad’ zealot that rather than take the logical option of taking it back into public ownership is bailing it out at vast cost, thereby setting a horrendous precedent which will enable any other rail franchise that hits trouble to demand a bail out. 

RENATIONALISATION AS START POINT

Not only should the East Coast Franchise be renationalised now, with it being made clear that it will not be privatised again, the whole railway network needs to be renationalised. The Labour party have laid out how this can be achieved – namely by refusing to put each franchise up for tender as and when it expires. For further detail check out We Own It’s Railways page. However, this is only a beginning – both because railways are only one part of public transport – there are also buses, and because one needs to consider how the system should be run. As I was typing this, the following came through on twitter from We Own It:

we own it buses tweet

Bus and railway services need renationalising, and they need to be run jointly. As to how they should be run – well there are two groups of people who should be represented in the body that runs public transport services: those who use the services and those who provide the services. If services are to be publicly owned (and these should be), they need to be fully publicly accountable. 

SOME EXTRA RESOURCES

I have three final links to share which relate to this piece:

  • A second piece from the Guardian on the Adonis Resignation
  • Mike Sivier of Vox Political has offered his take here.
  • The Mirror has demonstrated yet another way in which privatisation is failing us, with fares going up by an average of 3.4% (when we already pay on average five times as much as our fellow Europeans for a service that is probably not even on fifth as good as most of them get – I have travelled extensively in Europe over the years and most countries provide far better services than are available here in Britain) – we have on average the oldest carriages since records began (that average is 21 years old, with the Caledonian Sleeper holding an unwanted record with 42 year old carriages).

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is you reward for reaching the end of this piece:

TW30TW29TW28climbing squirrelrunning squirrelTW27TW26TW25TW23TW22TW21TW20TW19TW18TW17TW16TW15TW14Sun on the Great Ouse11 lapwingslapwings and gullMallard drakes and white duck

 

Welcome to 2018

A little something to kick off 2018 on aspi.blog

INTRODUCTION

Happy new year everyone. This post will give you a few hints as to what you can look forward to in 2018 on aspi.blog.

ASPI.BLOG STYLE GUIDE

Headings will generally be in a cycle that runs red/green’purple, although this is subject to variation in certain circumstances.

Body text will always be in black unless I am writing about autism, in which case I will use #RedInstead. 

When sharing content from another site I will always link to the host site and the specific post and where possible will mention the author by name – such links will be a different colour from regular body text and will be both bold and underlined. 

It will be a very rare post that does not congtain photographs.

LIKELY SUBJECTS FOR 2018

  • Autism
  • Public Transport 
  • Nature
  • Science
  • Religion
  • Cricket
  • Books
  • Photography

I will also probably find other things to blog about in 2018.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Cormorant and otherslapwingsCormorantfive lapwingsChurch and cormorantlapwings and gulls IIMoorhenssmall birdlapwings, cormorant and otherslapwings and gull11 lapwingsCormorant, gulls, lapwings

A COUPLE OF CLOSING QUESTIONS

Please feel free to use the comments to answer the questions below?

  1. What are your blogging ideas for 2018?
  2. What do you think about mine?

 

A Meme, A Puzzle and Some Bird Pictures

A meme about Evolution and Creationism, courtesy of @AtheistRepublic, a puzzle courtesy of Brilliant and some bird pictures of my own.

INTRODUCTION

Just a brief post to keep me on your radar!

EVOLUTION IN A MEME

This was posted on twitter by AtheistRepublic, and I think it is very good indeed:

Evolution

A PRIME PROBLEM FROM BRILLIANT

This little problem generated a surprising amount of controversy on brilliant – though it is not particularly difficult, and there were no real grounds for controversy:

SP

I will reveal the solution tomorrow.

BIRD PICTURES FROM KINGS LYNN

We had a bit of sun in King’s Lynn today, but in consequence of it being December it was already virtually level with the horizon by 3PM. However, it being as pleasant as a December day in Blighty can be I did get out a couple of times, and augmented my stock of bird pictures along the way:

Blackbird IIBlackbird IIIBlackbird IVBlackbird VMoorhen triangleMoorhenFemale BlackbirdFlying gullGull and westering sunRookGullsGulls IIFlying gull IIbirdsFlying birdFlying cormorantGulls and flying cormorantSmall birdGulls and cormorantCormorant with guard of gullsGathering of birdsCormorant

 

 

Birds

A bird post provoked in part by the Angling Trust seeking permission to double the rate at which they cull cormorants.

INTRODUCTION

This post has two elements: first, I saw on twitter something about the Angling Trust calling for cormorants to be shot “to protect stocks of coarse and game fish”, and following the link located the details which you can see here, and second while out looking for cormorants to photograph for this post I saw something else that I had not previously captured.

CORMORANTS

I would take a lot persuading that increasing the number of cormorants licensed to be shot copuld be justified in any case, but the grounds given, which amount to a statement that “our sport counts for more than cormorants” fail to come even remotely close. There is a cormorant colony within walking distance of central King’s Lynn, and although they were not about in big numbers when I went looking, there were four of them in evidence. Here are the pictures:

Posing Cormoranttwo cormorantsCormorant sandwichFour cormorantssingle cormorant close up

AN ASPI.BLOG FIRST

While observing the cormorants I also a got a couple of pictures of this:

LapwingLapwing 2

Going through my bird book I could find only two birds with black wings and a white bar across their tail. The first, the Storm Petrel was an unlikely option given how far King’s Lynn is from the nearest ocean (it is an ocean going bird). That left me with the second, the Lapwing, a medium sized wader that likes marshy or muddy conditions (not a problem in the vicinity of the Great Ouse!). Here to conclude this post is what my bird book has to say about Lapwings:

Lapwing - book

Trees in Transistion VIII

An addition to my “Trees in Transistion” series

INTRODUCTION

The pictures that appear in this post were taken yesterday morning while I walked from my flat to the Farmer’s Arms, Knight’s Hill for an NAS West Norfolk coffee morning.

THE TREES

Some of these pics have spots on them – it was raining, and a few drops got on the camera lens at times:

 

Trees In Transistion VII

The latest addition to my “Trees in Transistion” series.

INTRODUCTION

Later on today I hope to have time to put up a few more posts, but for the moment just to keep things coming here is the latest installment in my “Trees in Transistion” series. 

THE TREES’ TALE

The heading for this section is a nod to Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale”. These pictures do feature some trees not previously featured, and to borrow from another famous writer I hope that “age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety”…

Trees in Transistion V

The fifth installment in “Trees in Transistion”.

INTRODUCTION

This post will have a longer preamble than is usual for posts in this series because I have not posted much (except a reblog of an excellent post by Anna) in recent days. On Tuesday and today I have been busy at work, while yesterday I was in Norwich running a stall at a conference organised by ASD Helping Hands, titled “Ageing with Autism”. This means that the tree pics you see in this post are a little bit out of date. I hope to have time for some serious posting over the weekend. For the moment, welcome to the fifth installment in my series “Trees in Transistion”.

TREES TO THE FORE