Bonus

On Killiney Beach, watching cormorants sailing by and gannets diving and fishing. I wondered, and not for the first time, how gannets deal with refraction when fishing. How come they don't starve before they learn? Are they born knowing? I favour the latter, nature not nurture in this example. They are born with binocular vision and sufficient streamlining to survive 100 km/h impacts; so why would they not be born with an innate ability to correct their trajectory to account for the refracted position of the fish due to the bending of the light because of the density contrast at the water - air interface.

Gus, the dog, and I were watching one particular gannet that dived three times, and each time it resurfaced, it rested on the water as if successful (it was a bit far away to see if it was eating). The other gannets tended to get straight back into the air and resume hunting mode. Was one a better fisher? Or were the others starving students?

Later, and at a place I'll call Holly Horsefield, a big house forever associated with financial infamy, now for sale, I heard a raven, looked up and saw the raven being attacked by two hooded crows. Then I'm pretty sure I saw a peregrine falcon flashing across the tree tops (and if I did, it's great to have them back after unknown pigeon owners poisoned the last nesters a couple of years ago).

As an aside, it was Michael Gove who got me up the Cat's Ladder. To be clear, I employ a coping mechanism for arduous tasks: I think of something unpleasant or infuriating and dwell in my imagination thereby not noticing the physical difficulties. And Michael Gove was beside me on a plane yesterday, and I said nothing. I might have asked "Any regrets?" To which he might have replied "Je ne regrette rien" and if he had, I could have said "Shame on you". I'm no expert so I still wonder if I was right to afford him the luxury of privacy in so public a place. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a great cartoon here.

An 8 km walk. And I made my quota for March and rewarded myself with a 99. But poor Gus was exhausted because he covered twice the distance. One man commented as Gus slouched past, that I'd 'walked him out', and this was a kilometre from home.

A bonus. Google+ reminded me of this old blog post earlier. Photos I took and posted on a walk around this time, six years ago. And another bonus, four random iPhone snaps from the week gone by (rainbows etc without any explanations).