Day 91

I forgot to even mention my run yesterday, but I did run 1.85 miles (2.97km) yesterday, after marvelling at all the water and greenery and birds singing their heads off!  Today I only ran .86 miles (1.3km), in the sun, the wonderful sun!

I remember Tim once remarking that even when a bird is sad it still has to sing its happy song.  Most of them do sound happy, set as they are in a major key.

The Australian zebra finch is the second animal to have its genome completely sequenced, and scientists are studying these genes in order to discover things about humans which are similar.  Zebra finches are one of the few vocal animals to learn their song from their elders.  Baby zebra finches do the equivalent of cooing and gurgling in human babies, and then, once they have learned their song, from their fathers, usually, they keep that song for life, never changing it.  These tiny little birds also weigh less than half an ounce, and mate for life. 

I found this dear little garter snake sunning itself in the morning meadow, not much sun at that stage, and she raised her little head, stretching her neck longer and longer as I moved nearer, very wary of this big tower with eyes.

I quite often see these little snakes, they hide under rocks in the garden and in the woodpile in summer, and you can observe them sunning themselves at times.  They leave records behind in the form of papery sheddings, which are perfectly and uniformly indented with each little scale.

Tom, who works with Tim, thinks that my mystery animal is an opossum, and I think he is right.  I got another slightly clearer picture today, and think I got a little foot too!  She is probably a female about to have babies or has had them already.  Baby opossums are born the size of honeybees, and go straight into the pouch to develop, as they are North America's only marsupial!

It is the  most exciting moment, to see an animal in its den, and not to disturb it, just to observe it.  I felt like Gerald Durrell on Corfu!

I have been thinking about my map in my head, and about childhood, which forms us into who we are.  I remember being 8 and going to England for 6 months with my mother, while she and my dad sorted out their relationship.  This was history repeating itself, as my mother and aunt were taken back and forth to England with my grandmother when she had issues with my grandfather!  I wonder if 8 is a landmark age, as I remember particularly being 8, or if it is just that something so momentous happened to me, going over to a strange country on a huge boat which took about 12 days to get there!  And then all the new experiences there, staying with my mother's friend Joan and her daughter Penelope, going to school, traveling around the British Isles, and then getting on another big ship and sailing back to Cape Town. 

So my portrait today is from that age, I won a prize at the fancy dress on the ship, dressed as a Highland Dancer.  I remember so much about that time, but it is hard to remember being Anne Radford, that little girl with the graceful hand, contemplating the table of prizes.  8-year-old Anne Radford seems like another person in another time, but she is a part of me still, as is that day, that moment.