Month: August 2020
The Zebra Finch
We’ve finally come to the end of this amazing challenge! I’ve learned so much about a variety of birds including ones I’ve met for the first time. While I do look forward in doing another A-Z challenge, this one made me want to add more nature to the blog, so I’ll be looking at ways in how I incorporate do that. For now, here’s the Zebra Flinch!
Image: Look at this beauty!
🐦 Zebra flinches tend to live in large flocks; they’re natives to Australia, East Timor, and Indonesia. They’ve been introduced to Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.
🐦 Males tend to woo the females with their courtship dance and original song. Females do not sing.
Image: Just a couple of love birds
🐦 Nests are usually built of grasses and lined with feathers or even wool.
🐦 The expected lifespan of zebra flinches in the wild is 2 to 3 years.
Image: Cuddly
🐦 These birds are often kept as pets, but love matters to a zebra flinch, and when they choose their own mates, they’re better parents. When we play matchmakers for them, we tend to disturb their nature for they’re monogamous and tend to mate for life. Also, they don’t liked to be handled by humans.
Via Tim Siggs, here’s a short video of the zebra flinches in the wild:
Images: Pinterest
Reference/s: animaldiversity.org; YouTube
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Can’t sleep? Get God!
Is it past midnight and you still can’t sleep? Then you might have unfinished business with God.
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Don’t break a bird’s wings and then tell it to fly 🦅
Merci, Cavani!
Lately, this is how I feel about everything…
…including football, so that’s why I was the last to know that Edinson Cavani aka Bae left PSG never to return.
🎶 Musique mélancolique 🎶
I’m currently writing this while listening to French music because nothing sets the mood like French music. Plus, it’s aesthetically satisfying to listen to while writing about French things in general even if I don’t speak fluent croissant.
Italian football was never my thing. I was content with just La Liga and supporting Les Bleus, but one day, I decided to expand my viewing range. I thought the EPL all right and soon enough I was supporting teams such as Wenger’s Arsenal, Man City, and Tottenham. It was time to give the Italian league Serie A, a chance. I went in not expecting anything grand… until I saw a SSC Napoli game… and then I saw this guy…
…so I stayed and adapted Napoli as my favorite Serie A team until July 16th, 2013, when Edi joined French champions Paris Saint-Germain. He brought joy to many French fans that noted his drive, enthusiasm, commitment, passion, and humility. He also brought his strong headband game.
Cavani was PSG’s number 9 and overtime, the fans formed a bond with the player like no other. Almost every match day at the Parc des Princes, supporters chanted:
“E-din-son Cavani, lo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo.”
It was special. The appreciation was beautiful for PSG supporters can be cold, and they rarely sing songs for an individual, instead opting to serenade the club or the city. Even as a spectator in front of my TV, oceans and miles away from Paris, I felt as if I was right there in the stands chanting along. Even if Edi was only on the bench as a sub or not playing at all, they’ll be singing his song.
Outside the Parc des Princes, Cavani went above and beyond to integrate himself into French culture and it was gratefully received by the locals. Whenever Cavani got the opportunity to return home to Salto, Uruguay, he’ll be seen working the family farm even on his vacation.
Merci!
Finally, coming to the point that warranted this post in the first place: Cavani didn’t get his goodbye applause from the stadium he called home for the last 7 years due to not extending his contract until this August. He deserved a fitting send-off, but he quietly left the club as PSG’s all-time top goal scorer (200 goals in 301 games) and 19 trophies to his name. I think it’s criminal that PSG is in the Champions League final and Cavani’s name won’t be on the roster.
Two of my all-time favorite moments I’ll always treasure of Cavani in a PSG jersey comes in the form of his character and not goals. The first was when he gave his jersey to a disabled supporter…
…and the second was quite recent. In March, PSG beat Borussia Dortmund and when many of PSG’s boys were mocking Erling Haaland’s goal celebration, Cavani manned up and stayed away from such childish tactics.
Merci beaucoup for the goals, and fond memories, El Matador! There’ll never be another you and here’s to Benfica or wherever you may end up, even if it’s a team I dislike in the EPL.
Related: They Call Him Edinson I Call Him Bae
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Good night from Singapore 🌕
Beautiful edits via @adventurefervor (Instagram).
Follow this account for beautiful travel destinations!
Click on the link to view the other 2 photos from this magnificent set!
#allureofthemoon
The Yellowthroat
This bird is so beautiful! It’s like a small kiskadee. I’m going to miss this challenge when it finally comes to an end, but I have a few ideas in store for another one. Enjoy this beauty!
Image: “Singing my song, all the day long!”
🐦 Where the adult males are bright yellow with a sharp black mask on the face, the females lack the black mask; they’re plain and olive brown.
🐦 Yellowthroats live in open areas (marshes being their hot spot). During migration, they might be found in forests or backyards.
Image: “I’m ready for my close-up!”
A female Yellowthroat
🐦 Yellowthroats are nonconformists and there are 13 species of them.
🐦 These small songbirds are also known as a New World Warbler.
Image: “Look, Ma, I’m a butter ball.”
🐦 Despite a decline in some areas due to loss of habitat, they’re still pretty common.
Via Clive Bramham, listen to the sweet cheerful melody of the male Yellowthroat:
Images: Pinterest; allaboutbirds.org
Reference/s: allaboutbirds.org; YouTube
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The Xantus’s Hummingbird
We’re almost to the end of this wonderful challenge, and I was really happy to get a bird starting with the letter X. I must say, what I love about nature, is that it doesn’t need a soundtrack for the singing of birds are sufficient. Even their wings is music itself.
Image: So pretty!
🐦 The Xantus’s Hummingbird was named after John Xantus de Vesey, a Hungarian zoologist.
🐦 These birds are native to the southern Baja Peninsula of Mexico (Baja California) and Jacques Cousteau Island aka Cerralvo Island (uninhabited island located off the coast of the Cerralvo Channel in Baja California Sur). They have also been documented in southern California and British Columbia.
Image: Xantus’s male
🐦 The Xantus’s Hummingbird measures 3 – 3.5 inches (8 – 9 cm) in length – including bill and tail.
🐦 These birds feed on nectar taken from a variety of brightly colored, scented small flowers of trees, herbs, shrubs, and epiphytes. They favor flowers with the highest sugar content.
Image: What a beaut!
🐦 A nesting female can capture up to 2,000 insects a day.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a YT video about the Xantus’s Hummingbird, but I still wanted to feature a video, so via ZoneA, here’s a video of 10 beautiful hummingbirds.
Images: Pinterest
Reference/s: identify.whatbird.com; beautyofbirds.com; YouTube
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Books #170 – #171: The Picture of Alice in Wonderland
Classic Books Total: 20
A classic update.
Book #170: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
In order to understand a story, at times, one must go back to the original source: where in the world was the writer’s mind at the time of writing? I pose this question to Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll. This book has been a part of many children’s lives including mine, so I decided to go back for a visit many years later as an adult. However, this time around, I was not impressed. Alice couldn’t stop talking, and I was annoyed that I had to read her boring thoughts every single time. She was also snobby and rude and lacked sensitivity towards animals. Everyone in this book was stone-cold cruel.
The story was random and all over the place and at some point, I wondered what drugs Carroll was on and could I have some, please? I bet it was some sort of hallucinogen. This book was sheer nonsense just as most of the so-call beloved classics I’ve read.
Alice is actually based on a real-life person: Alice Liddell. I don’t know what Carroll’s fascination and attraction to the 10-year-old was. In Victorian times, everyone was off their rockers.
Tim Burton described Carroll’s stories as “drugs for children” and Wonderland as a place where “everything is slightly off, even the good people.” I agree with him. The end.
Final Verdict:
Book #171: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I read this book twice: when I was in my preteen and as a young adult, so this was a 3rd reread. Yes, you read right, because back then, I thought Dorian Gray was simply all that.
Wilde is a master of painting and weaving beautiful words. It’s like an aesthetic. Dorian Gray is a beautiful yet corrupt man. Repeatedly mentioned are Gray’s blue eyes, scarlet lips, and golden hair, but he was easily manipulated because he couldn’t think for himself. What a beautiful brainless moron!
The book centers on narcissism right down to the point where Dorian was interested in an actress, Sybil Vane (Vain), a so-call love interest that wasn’t even needed for the book.
Harry or Henry or Whatever talked and talked and talked. I wanted to reach into the book and slap some sense into him. The passages were already too long and too descriptive and here’s shallow Harry or Henry or Whatever carrying on as if the book was about him. His disdain for the world and women resonated with Dorian who decides to set out to fall in love with vanity and pride. Harry or Henry or Whatever, was a snooze fest. Every word that tumbled out of his mouth made him out to be unintelligent, but it worked over Gray, who became a sort of experiment for him.
Now, I understand that Gray was supposed to be vain and horrible and all that jazz, and Harry or Henry or Whatever, just plain hateful for his wife wasn’t as beautiful as the stars at night, but the way these characters talk (Harry or Henry or Whatever who is jealous of Gray’s beauty and youth and Basil the painter who is obsessed with Gray) are downright suspicious. Basil and Harry or Henry or Whatever talked to Gray as if he was a sweet innocent little boy who’s being sexualized by these two old predators. The characters are soulless and dull for Wilde chose to focus on the senses to appeal to the audience. Wilde also enjoyed bashing women negatively that he didn’t realize his writing was so flowery he could’ve sold it in a Parisian flower market.
The book could’ve been better. Much better. A lot of people are fighting to stay forever young and eternally beautiful today and there’s always a price for it. Just look at those surgically disfigured faces looking at you from the cover of magazines. There’s a type of beauty that fascinates the world and its timeless beauty. There’s a reason why Tom Cruise is worshipped for his beauty in several parts of the world and why he’s called the “Dorian Gray of movies”. But he has fillers and plastic surgery to thank as well.
The content of this book was said to be indecent and morally wrong. It was called a work that “delights in dirtiness and confesses its delight” upon its release and the story reflects the author’s life at some point. I’m willing to read more Wilde, but I’m not particularly wild for him at the moment. To believe, I twice read and liked this drivel.
Final Verdict:
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Jesus will fix it!
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
1 Peter 5:10
There is always going to be trouble in our way, but no matter what we’re going through, God is still in control.
Our struggles might be weighing our shoulders down, but we don’t have to carry the weight of the world when we could give our burdens to Jesus, and He’ll fix it.
So, keep your eyes on Jesus, and hang on, for better days are coming.
Stepped, stepped in the furnace a long time ago
Shadrech, Meshach and Abendigo
No, they were not worried, oh, this I know
They knew that Jesus will fix it after while
Trouble in my way, I have to cry sometimes
Trouble in my way, I have to cry sometimes
I lay awake at night, but that’s alright
I know my Jesus will fix it after while
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