Although February
is the shortest month we have packed quite a bit into the 28 days. The Chinese
also greeted their year of the goat and we are still being told about it with
noisy fireworks in the vicinity.
My favourite Kingfishers, aka Simon and Garfunkel were happy to sing in the Year of the Goat.
Helen is busy
teaching her students and preparing for a half marathon race. In the weekends
she and some friends put on their crampons and oxygen packs and assail Mount
Penang.
Nikki seems to be
having a good time in Okinawa and has bought some diving gear to continue the
fun underwater.
Dani is in the
final throes of her degree and is preparing for the London Marathon. She has also been applying for jobs and was
offered a managerial position in Morrison’s supermarket chain. She had other
irons in the fire but accepted the position offered.
We are starting to plan
our trip to the UK for her graduation ceremony. The current plan is to head to
Glasgow via Amsterdam where we will catch up with Maureen and then stay with
Anne for a few days before heading down the east coast to Cambridge. I would
like to shoot the puffins on Farne Island on the way down. Some years back
Helen and I planned a weekend in York that never eventuated so we have a second
chance at that as well. After the graduation we hope to catch up with Craig and
Eve before heading back to Penang.
We have had guests
in the house over Chinese New Year but this year so far has been disappointing
in the number of enquiries even. We hear this is quite general as the decreased
oil process have kept many people grounded.
We are in another
prolonged dry spell and have to water the lawns and garden quite regularly. It
pays off with more flowers with colour and butterflies.
The photographic
season is not yet at peak but I have had quite a bit of fun already. My
Bee-eater location is under threat as the bikers have withdrawn from the track.
Elsewhere I have little and large in nesting situations. Little is a family of
Coppersmith Barbets nesting in a rotting tree. Large is a pair of Crested
Serpent Eagles that are currently feeding new chicks.
 |
| Someone has to take out the shit |
I am particularly
keen to get out early to see the dawn light etching flowers and landscapes. The
pre-dawn hour is also the time the Barn Owl reports home and highflying jets
get lit up by the sun that has yet to appear above the horizon.
The Bee-eaters at Penanti still entertain as they prepare to raise young and peripheral birds fill in the time between Bee-eater shots.
At Air Hitam Dalam...you never know what your are going to get as Squirrels power around trees with nest building materials, little Yellow-rumped Flycatchers flirt with the lens, 2 monkey species dine together and Barbets and Woodpeckers have a Mexican stand-off over ownership of a nesting hole.
A month or two
back I submitted some images to a German bird library…..this has paid off with
one image at least being sold (shown below).
Helen and I both
pay regular visits to the gym at the G-Hotel where you can work-out looking
across the bay towards the Straits of Malacca. A few weeks back a ship occupied
a lot of the vista as the Queen Mary II paid a visit to Penang.
With congested roads and bad drivers we sometimes wonder if we made the right choice for phase 1 of retirement. An International survey published in the Huffington Post seems to back up our thinking as Malaysia was rated in the bronze medal position regarding the best countries to retire to in the world.
