who only by moving can balance

Did not actually see it, and it did not actually yell at us again once I'd called Adam outside to Witness, but! first bat observation of the year! I have been saying with increasing irritation to anyone who'll listen "oh come on, surely it's bat o'clock by now--" for the last couple of weeks, so I am delighted to finally have confirmation that: BAT

Here is a Youtube video about a scientific study of how bats deal with the Doppler effect. Captioned, audio not necessary. It is delightful.

1. Hat-tip to oursin: I am delighted by what the National Trust has been spending my money on, per the Graun and indeed the relevant NT Facebook.

2. We have been aware, for a long time, of the altocommon pipistrelle(s) that hang(s) around here! But then LAST NIGHT the bat detector detected an UNUSUAL NOISE and we are pretty certain it was a noctule (e.g.), so HURRAH for expensive toys and HURRAH for local biodiversity.

3. Via recessional, important Australian bats.

Reading. ( Victoria Routledge, Ann Leckie )

Writing. -- OKAY. SO. THE THING IS. I got most of the way through my chapter 5 rewrites! I was genuinely nearly there! And then, this evening, while grudgingly slogging through skim-reading some background for the sake of writing one (1) throwaway context-setting paragraph, I stumbled across an equally throw-away sentence that! explains! everything! Or, well, shifts me from "I know I'm right" to "and I know why", which is a pleasant improvement from my previous position of "... fucked if I know what's going on in physical terms, though". I can't prove it -- I can't go back into lab -- but by goodness can I argue it more compellingly!

... the downside being that it means I probably need to completely restructure the discussion section of my final Science Chapter, and also my supervisor now wants me to hold off on sending her the rewrite I'd been going to get her by tomorrow morning. Until we've had a meeting. To discuss things. When I just want to be done, but, sigh, okay, I have in fact also achieved Explaining!!! Everything!!!!! and spent some time really quite excited about it.

Because. Managing to actually hit a point, in the discussion section of the final science chapter of my thesis, where I read a throwaway sentence included in someone else's 2006 paper for completeness' sake -- and having everything go ker-chunk into place, in a way I am almost certainly the only person on the planet currently in a position to be able to do -- well. Well that's a lovely affirming sense-of-mastery Moment to have had, even as it does make More Work.

Watching. CXG S03E02. Oh good grief. ( Read more... )

The Edinburgh Zoo penguin cam, in the background.

Cooking. ( Read more... )

Eating. The final delivery of our three-month Ruby Violet subscription arrived this week, so in addition to eating up the black sesame (home-made) and the hazelnut brittle (from a previous batch), I have also been monching cheerfully on the British Blackcurrant (always one of my favourites!), the Honey & Honeycomb, and the new-to-me banana-and-toffee. Which I think I like well enough, but would prefer with more evenly distributed toffee and probably also salted caramel sauce, which I do not currently have any of because the previous batch of it finally went off, so perhaps I should make another one in the interests of using up the double cream I'm not otherwise getting around to. Hmm.

Making & mending. I have tried reattaching the mud guard to the bike, and it looks tentatively promising, although I need to tighten up some things and wiggle some other things and generally pump up the tyres, none of which I am willing to do until I've managed to coax myself into sorting out the front brake cable. So that's a job for this week, probably. (I also spent some time poking at the AXA lock on the rear wheel; I couldn't get the broken-off key stub in the lock out using any of the half-hearted approaches I've attempted so far, so for my next trick I need to get around to selecting an appropriate screwdriver, removing the whole thing, and then having another go at said key stub in the comfort of the warm indoors.)

Growing. Chillis continue! Sciarid flies appear to have Done Away With most of the interesting tomatoes, so alas I need to work myself up to getting a second batch of those started (ugh) (and yes they'll be late, but some is better than none). But. Things survive.

Observing. BATS (PLURAL). First bats of the year! We've been keeping an eye out since late March, on the grounds that we first spotted them in early April last year, but in fact the first bat sighting this year was tonight as I was attempting to settle down to start horn practice and, instead, BATS. TWO OF THEM. I am DELIGHTED that we are properly into the season of bat o'clock.

This was sufficiently exciting that even I managed to coax Adam away from his snail to look at (and listen to) them.

... we have also been Observing the Snail. ( Read more... )

About a year ago, I think -- oh gosh, just over a year ago -- we came, as a household, to the conclusion that we needed A Bat Detector.

I promptly opened around twenty tabs, winnowed them down to about ten, and then hit executive-dysfunction decision paralysis. I've had the tab tree open and taunting me ever since. (I have message and comment notifications from 2016 that I'm definitely going to respond to Any Day Now Okay.)

On Saturday, or thereabouts, A announced to me that he had Purchased A Bat Detector, having found some motive force down the back of the sofa, and with no small relief I closed the tab tree.

Yesterday, a PAKIDGE arrived... and the weather was too dubious for there to exist any bats.

THIS EVENING, HOWEVER. THIS EVENING I was flailing around on the floor doing some Pilates a little after nine o'clock, and I glanced at the sky and said "... bat o'clock...?" and up off the sofa A got, with the bat detector, and took it out onto the patio, and turned it on, and DETECTED! A BAT!

And then we stood outside for a little in the twilight flapping excitedly every time we got a burst of bat-static, and were thoroughly delighted that A heard the bat before he saw it -- and in general, yes, excellent hobby, let's do this again.

(The detector - a Magenta Bat5 - was providing clearest audio at around 47kHz, implying that the pet bat is a common or garden or alto pipistrelle, which is more or less what we expected. Are we pleased, though? HECK YES WE'RE PLEASED, and also I clearly need a bat icon.)

I don't know if I was just being hideously distracted or unobservant or WHAT but I have just! Seen the back-garden bat! For the first time this year! Batting merrily about the place! I WAS WRITING UP A LONGER POST BUT THIS IS WHAT YOU GET NOW.

I was sat on the sofa discussing house misc. with A, as one does when one is in the process of inexplicably buying a house, and there was something FLITTING AROUND ABOVE THE GRASS outside the westward-facing window, and I said BAT??? excitedly, and we both jumped up and turned off the lights and stood arms-around-each-other watching the bat for Several Minutes, and it was lovely.

We are choosing to believe that it was Our Friend Bat, you know, the one that emphatically does not consider us a friend.