'He left me much too soon...'

Following on from yesterday's post (two posts! in 48 hours! this is like the glory days of 2008), it's possible that somewhere, stuck to a twig, fairly near ground level, there is a poster appealing for the safe return of one particular ladybird.

For its family, I have some difficult news:


This is a glass of water in my kitchen last night.

Initially, I had poured myself a glass of water to have with my tea. I know that this is the kind of detail about my intriguing yet mysterious domestic life that you clamour to hear. Ten minutes later, when I sat down to eat/drink, there was a ladybird floating in my glass, limbs flailing weakly.

I fished it out of the water with a teaspoon and a level of tenderness I don't usually reserve for insects. And I left it on the kitchen table to dry off and collect itself. But several hours later, when I was back in the kitchen tidying up, I went to empty a different glass that was half full of water and inside it was the ladybird. Not flailing. Not living. Dead, in fact.

I wasn't really sure how to deal with the fact that a ladybird had been so determined to end its life in my flat that it had made two attempts at drowning. And one of them had worked.

I was telling my work colleagues this story earlier and, just before Ms S slipped into a deep coma prompted by my lengthy insect-based anecdote, she told me that these ladybirds of many spots (as my dead one was) should not be nurtured as they are KILLING our indigenous lesser-spotted ladybirds. I can only assume that this one in particular was so overcome with remorse for the terrible things he had done, he had to take drastic action. Perhaps the sight of his own monstrous reflection in my chrome kettle, as he made his way across my kitchen worktop, was simply too much to bear. His moral burden was too heavy for his fragile set of wings.

Despite the fact that he was a murderous warmonger (do you notice that despite being a 'lady'bird, I have started calling it 'he'. Why is this?), I gave him a good burial beneath the mini-rose plant my friend Ms B gave me for my birthday.



I'm hoping it might start growing polka-dot flowers now.

And as a mark of respect, I played this for him. RIP you conflicted six-legged tragedy.

The indignity of it all

Let me make this clear at the start. I'm no animal lover. No vegetarian. I may be hypocritically squeamish about tongues and trotters, but I'm rarely shy when they're handing out the breaded veal. Since being bitten by a Yorkshire terrier as a small child, I dislike dogs, to the extent where I have become physically allergic to them. Admittedly, most days I blame that on over-ingestion of antibiotics as a child (medical ratification and follow-up article in The Lancet pending), but the fact remains I am still profoundly canine-averse. I start emitting anxious squeaks should anyone incite me to heartily pat a horse during a trip to the countryside.

But even from that hostile starting position, I was perturbed to see this information posted on the glass wall of the intensive care unit at the New England Aquarium.


Clearly there is no vetinarian equivalent of the hypocratic oath.

One frail turtle has had his dirty washing well and truly hung out in public, in some macrocosmic version of being examined by a doctor in front of an audience of student medics. Only instead of, say, four weary junior doctors standing around staring at your physical vulnerabilities, there are thousands of visitors from all over the world, taking pictures of them, which they will then take home and publish on the internet to their literally tens of readers.

I can't decide whether it is better or worse that the patient answers to a number rather than a name. It offers a kind of anonymity of course - as much as you can find when you're swimming around in a transparent tank right under your medical records. But still, I keep thinking about that turtle saying to himself, 'If I'm going to die here, I want someone to call me Michael just one more time before I go.'

I'm guessing.

I can't quite bear the diagnosis of 'flipper lameness'. It makes me think of physically ungifted children struggling through school sports lessons, or tottering old people edging their way down the bus, looking hopefully at blank-eyed youths with Walkmans (Walkmen?) occupying the priority seats. I murmur a constant prayer that Michael isn't made to perform his physiotherapy as some kind of sideshow for visitors, like the reptilian Esther Williams.

I shudder at the notion of a similar report on my physical wellbeing getting a public showcase. 'Borderline verrucca. No discernible stomach muscles. Recurrent sniffling. Scaly dry skin (possible reptile cross-species?).'

At least I didn't take a prying picture of the patient.


Oops.

Sorry, but the press never sleeps. Still, you will be relieved to see I've attempted to protect his anonymity, in my own small way.

Owls and eagles and hawks… oh my

This weekend I have been on a field trip or, to be more specific, an owl experience, thanks to a brilliant birthday present from my brother.

I love owls, most particularly their ever-present expression of stoicism and thinly veiled contempt.

We didn't just experience owls, though. Oh no. We also experienced eagles and hawks. Eagles are pretty OK. But not as good as owls. Slightly behind eagles, OK-wise, are hawks.

Owls have exceptional hearing. This is a Fact I learned, in response to a Question I asked. At least, I think it's a fact. The lady falconer in charge of our experience told me their hearing is so good they can hear the heartbeat of a mouse. This is so extraordinary I couldn't decide whether to believe it or not. It seemed exactly the kind of fabricated story the staff would spin to gullible, just-off-the-London-train wildlife-tourists like me, all French Connection parka and silver Converse. They would then laugh among themselves in the pub after work, over some hearty real-ale-style beverage, as they imagined me repeating this ludicrous untruth in polite society, much to the derision of everyone present.

I also learnt that a kestrel can lift a double-decker bus

Of all the owls I met, I had two favourites.

The first one is called Louis. He is small but he fights dirty. Here is a picture of him sitting on my glove, and I think it is quite clear by his expression what an instant, deeply affectionate bond we formed.


The second is called Willy, because of Willy Wonka. You may notice that Willy has a Wonky beak.

This kind of thing represents a moment of flippant hilarity to whoever named the bird, but to Willy, it means a lifetime of mockery from the rest of the aviary and a dangerously negative body image. This kind of thing makes me sick.

Willy is of a nervous disposition, which sometimes means he doesn't pick up physical skills as quickly as the other owls. I felt great understanding for what it must be like to be in Willy's feathers.

And here is the biggest eagle we met, who is a lot heavier than any owl.

You can see here that I had to rest my arm on a rubbish bin when I was holding him because I was so worried about my non-muscles trembling visibly within about two seconds, right in front of the critical eye of my fellow owl-fanciers. It is not all glamour being an amateur eagle-hander, that is for sure.

Tree, slain

(originally intended date of posting: December 12th, 2009)

There I was, walking to the train station, thinking about all the incredibly important and complicated things I usually think about on my regular 13-minute morning constitutional, when I saw this in front of me:


A tree, fallen, sprawling on the street.

It had not been a particularly windy night. There were no attendants in fluoroescent gilets declaring the area a hazard, no tree surgeons pondering its demise, no buzzing of chain saws or hauling of ropes, no triangular signs warning of its imminent descent and subsequent removal and apologies for any inconvenience caused.

There was just a tree lying on the pavement.

A tree that, with no evidence to the contrary, appeared to have fallen of natural causes, wrenching itself free of its foundations. Perhaps it took some kind of funny turn, botanically speaking, and swooned on to the tarmac below, clasping at the railings with its branches on the way down, in an attempt to break its fall. 'Is it hot out here? I feel a bit... ooh, look out down there!'

Since there was no prohibitive red and white tape to stop me, I walked on past the tree. I was this close to it. Something about the scale of it made me feel a bit queasy. Trees are really, really big when they're lying down. And this one looked horribly undignified, lying prostrate and vulnerable to attack from any road or pavement dweller. I am particularly thinking of the under 5s on their ill-controlled scooters in what is a very busy area for young families.

Basically, what I kept thinking was, 'Aslan.'

I was so distressed I found myself wondering whether there was a slim chance that any part of it could still be alive, and at what point a tree technically dies, but I decided that when it had been 100% severed from its roots, that point had almost certainly become history. Even I, ludicrous, twee fantasist, had to concede that it was unlikely to open a pair of barky eyes and say, 'This is terribly embarrassing but could you help me up? I feel such an old fool.'

The next morning, every trace of it had disappeared, except:

and:

What had become of it? Where had they taken it? I would never know, but if I had an open fire, I would be thinking twice about tossing a fresh log on to it.

In which I demonstrate that palaeontologists are cruel and unfeeling

When you are returning to South Kensington tube station from the Royal Albert Hall late in the evening, after they have closed the tunnel that promises to be a short cut, yet never, ever feels like one, you walk down the side of the Natural History Museum. Last night, I noticed that the palaeontology boffins had left the lights on in one of the back rooms – yeah, big up our planet with your all-singing, all-interactive exhibits, boffins, but at the same time, KILL IT with your profligate attitude towards energy usage.

Anyway, through the window I saw this:

There, abandoned on top of some lonely cupboards, like a broken tennis racket or an ugly, inherited suitcase, was a small diplodocus*†.

Jesus, palaeontologists, show some respect. She's 150 million years old. She lived every day in mortal fear of the Tyrannosaurus rex** so you could dick around at university for the best years of your life.

* or effigy of

† possibly

** probably not. Diplodocuses are notoriously dim, so she probably lived every day thinking, 'Woh! My tail's really long. Cool!' and also 'Mmm, delicious foliage.'