Scare the Birds

The best of the day was before lunch, but I wasn't able to get out of the house. When I did head out for a planned walk and blip session, the previously clear blue sky had begun to cloud over. Still there were plenty of sunny breaks, and I thought it'd be nice around Howth harbour. That plan was quickly scuppered when the traffic ground to a halt just past the Bull Wall, looking as if it was backed up all the way from Sutton. So I nipped up beside where the pond and rockery used to be in St Anne's Park (the scene of City Hall's latest act of public vandalism), and settled yet again for a stop-off at St Anne's.

I was about to do the usual and head for the Rose Garden and the main avenue and the Red Stables, but then I noticed that the playing fields had been taken over by a large gaggle of geese (whoever came up with that term for a big group of these creatures certainly got it right: the noise was quite something, and did sound a bit like "gaggle, gaggle, gaggle?"). I tried to get among them, walking cagily towards them so as to disturb them as little as possible, but they kept moving away and separating into different groups. I tried and I tried, but there was no way I could get close to them, and then when this pair arrived on the scene I knew my chances were gone forever.

Sure enough, all these little lads wanted to do was run among the geese so as to disturb them and get them to fly away. My immediate reaction was one of feeling sorry for the geese, and I actually considered going up to the children and asking them to stop (how grumpy can you get!). Then I realised that the two lads could actually prove to be a blip godsend, and I concentrated on capturing the havoc they caused. It wasn't easy to choose a representative blip. In addition to the one I chose (which is best viewed BIG, incidentally), this one was a close alternative, while I also toyed with the idea of uploading this shot of one of the boys in full flight.

I'll probably agonise about this later on while I'm at tonight's symphony concert in the National Concert Hall (a nice programme, conducted by Dmirti Jurowski, younger brother of Vladimir, who's the new principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra). By a pleasant happenstance, an ex-member of our music group (now living in Zurich, who we spent some time with during our trip there in 2008) is in Dublin for the weekend, and has got a ticket for this concert. So we'll meet up with him before (and no doubt after) and have a bit of a chat.