On the way to a posh party yesterday (that turned out to be really enjoyable by the way) Michele noticed that one of the long-term pigeon nests at New Cross station was filled with babies again. We’ve seen this happen a lot over the years but this time we have them in squab stage, and they’re lovely! Michele was so excited that we decided to go back today and take some pictures. The problem was that even with a 3x zoom, the nest is up so high that we couldn’t get much detail. As we were cooing over them a young rude-boy looking lad sitting nearby with his rudy girlfriend started asking us what we were doing. His reaction to being told about the baby pigeons was not what we expected; he jumped up and ran over with tones of genuine excitement. “He’s mad, he takes pictures of ducks ” his girlfriend shouted. He didn’t seem embarrassed though, in fact he was only too keen to tell us about them as Michele handed over the binoculars.
“I might look like a thug but I love those ducks” he said. Once he’d seen the baldy, fluffy little bird he seemed almost overwhelmed “oh my days!” he exclaimed. I told him the problem we had getting pictures of them and he lunged towards a low wall nearby and within a matter of seconds he was hanging by one hand from an RSJ, feet perched on a bolt, and attempting to take close-up pictures of the baby with his mobile. I handed him my camera and he got a couple of cracking shots. The most stupid thing I did that day was to not think of taking a picture of him in his spiderman pose up that pillar. I’d never have had the guts to do that, especially as my weight is more considerable and may have threatened the entire shelter… Top lad though – thanks whoever you are.
For the past week or so I’ve been playing with Flash Media Server. Getting deeply involved with non-free software always makes me feel a bit dirty, but after a year of writing Winblows software this is like a nice bath. It would seem that Macromedia really knew what they were doing…video in Flash is shockingly easy and yet utterly enjoyable. With any luck the OSS gurus will soon have the whole thing replicated and improved.
