Unstuffed: Coming Home to Roost

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Coming Home to Roost

After posting about losing my camera a while back, a friend got in touch with me letting me know that there was an extra camera in his household that wasn't being used, and I could have it if I wanted to. Yes I did! I was thrilled.

And I had the camera with me on my way home from work yesterday and managed to catch a few shots of the crows heading to their roost.

Keep in mind, that this is just a couple of sections of the sky and one portion of the flock. It usually takes about a half hour for all the crows to fly overhead at any given point. This flock is coming from the north west. I've also seen them flying in from the east and the north. So that should give you an idea of the numbers of birds we're talking about here. I'm guessing it's about an 1/8 of the human population of Ottawa.

These crows will probably hang out in a few 'staging areas' near the roost, before they make their way to the actual roost to settle in for the night.

If I can I'll try and snap some pics of the roost soon.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: I was driving East on Heron Road on Friday night, and I saw all the crows flying to their roost. It was a wonderful sight that I've never noticed before. Thanks for making me look up!; November 23, 2010 at 8:27 AM
Amber said...: Glad you spotted them! I was at the roost on Saturday. The nearly full moon was up and the crows were just getting settled in for the night. I don't think I'll ever stop being fascinated by the sight.; November 23, 2010 at 10:10 AM
Urban Girl said...: I've put in a request for Crow Planet at the library - thanks! I love what you are sharing about the book. This entry paralleled a short story that Lisa Couturier wrote on following crows to their roost. Her "urban landscape" book is called "The Hopes of Snakes". You may enjoy reading it too!; November 24, 2010 at 8:50 PM

Raison d'etre

In 2008 I didn't buy anything new for the whole year. Food and basic toiletries (but not toilet paper) were the obvious exceptions (twice I broke my own rule). Used items were allowed, but I tried really hard to reduce consumption as much as possible.

I finished my year successfully, and along the way learned a lot about how much the world consumes, the waste we produce, sustainability, voluntary simplicity, climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, the water crisis, the food crisis, voting with your dollar, voting with your fork....

Now, I've transformed into a slightly nutty, very passionate, gardening, preserving, DIYing, simple living, nature loving, weed eating, backyard medicine making, urban homesteader, and I still don't use toilet paper!

With the help of the Awesomedudeguy (ADG), I'm continuing my exploration of living lightly and frugally, while increasing my self-sufficiency and resiliency, staying debt free, and preparing for a climate changed, resource depleted world, in uncertain economic times.

My nothing new restriction is lifted, but I continue to be a gentle, local consumer as much as possible.

My hope is that some of the information and resources I post about here will be helpful to others. Thanks so much for stopping by !

Yours in unstuffing,
Amber

"Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with dandelion, make a sorry figure for the drawing room" ~Emily Dickinson

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that.... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature." ~Abraham Cowley

"The laws of nature are under no obligation to cater to our culture’s emotionally charged fantasies of perpetual progress and limitless growth." ~John Michael Greer

"Sometimes we think we are too small to make a difference in this big world. Our actions seem insignificant in comparison to global issues such as climate change and population growth. However, the reality is that action on an individual level is exactly how big changes are made. Without individual and family sustainability, there’s no community sustainability. And without community sustainability, there’s no global sustainability. In fact, earth-wide change is absolutely impossible without individual change.
It really does come down to you and me."
~From Living Sustainably: It's Your Choice

"The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop." ~Mark Twain

"It is not enough simply to abstain from theft...We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers. It is our duty, therefore, to borrow no more from the world than we absolutely need, and to make full and proper use of it. Taking more than we need, and wasting it, is a form of stealing from the rest of humankind."
~Commentary on Sutra 30 The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali