Eavesdropping

Eavesdropping songbirds get predator intel from overheard calls
from here (and for the full article)

Humans are a funny lot. While we seem to be relentless voyeurs, we generally frown on eavesdropping as an invasion of privacy. But in the animal world, eavesdropping can be a matter of life or death. Animals rarely communicate in isolation. Often it pays for one species to monitor the dialogues of others, particularly when predator warnings are involved.

Small animals in particular do well to pay attention to the alarms of other species, as they are often preyed upon by the same larger hunters. Even very unrelated species can listen in and understand each other's signals. Vervet monkeys respond to the alarm calls of superb starlings, while mongooses are well-versed in hornbill calls...

Alarm calls aren't just a simple matter of shouting "Look out!", and many species have different calls for different predators. But one of the most sophisticated alarm systems so far discovered is used by a small, unassuming bird called the black-capped chickadee.

The chickadee acts as an inadvertent sentry for a multitude of bird species. Its name comes from its distinctive "chick-a-dee" alarm call, made in response to a perched bird of prey or a land predator. When this call sounds out, anywhere between 24 and 50 species of bird marshall together and mob the predator, robbing it of the element of surprise and harassing it from the area.
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Nice to know.

How can Bob not love this.

How can the drummer and Phil Collins fan in Bob not love this? :)

Spring Time in the yard

Amp in the Laundry

One weekend over at the Bassist's place. :)

Electric Company and the Chickens in the Tree

And a break from the study with some Youtube action.


What a great show. Great tune! Anyone remember Morgan Freeman in the Electric Company? Sure didn't realise. Until now!

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And from Sesame Street. Nobody remembers this but me, thus far. And it's made Bob wonder if it was a figment of his imagination all this time.


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And the most powerful of 'em all.

Must learn to jam this with the band sometime.

a good place to be.

plans for the future?

how does "Dr. Tan and the All Good Things Cafe" sound.

Someone

Someone to lay my words on the gentle bars of a rhyme.
Where could you be?
Between now and then, maybe.
Bookmarked on a page lost to the wind.

Brekkie delights

Spiced up wok fried egg on toast with a side of tomatoes and zucchini. Another dish in Bob's menu.

Humans can't multitask.

Ladies. Think again! Yes males are usually said to be completely inept at doing this. But then again, so too are the ladies apparently, in this study.

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Think You're Multitasking? Think Again
by Jon Hamilton 2 October 2008
NPR website

Don't believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren't as good as we think we are at doing several things at once. But it also highlights a human skill that gave us an evolutionary edge.

As technology allows people to do more tasks at the same time, the myth that we can multitask has never been stronger. But researchers say it's still a myth — and they have the data to prove it.

Humans, they say, don't do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly.

Read full article here.

Fish Curry

Finally got down to cooking Fish Curry with the paste my dad suggested I get during the family visit.

And the result? Pretty darned decent. Fresh fish, plenty of eggplant, onions, tomatoes and lady's fingers. Yummalicious.

Singapore Day

Sunny Saturday was spent at Singapore Day at the Sidney Myer Bowl, Botanic Gardens. Quite an extraordinary day I must say. Such effort to galvanize Singapore's sons and daughters who left the 'sunny island set in the sea' for other, much larger and sunnier ones, like this huge as one, Australia. And what did we do? We queued and queued for free food. Chilli Crab, Fried Kway Teow, Chicken Rice, Ice Kachang. The works. With another 10,000 or so Singaporeans who descended upon the event with one aim in mind. Food. Home-styled hawker food. Not some fake-as Singapore noodle bull. And the Singlish. All over. Comforting in a way, and great in the sense that all this was happening overseas. Definitely not quite the same hearing Singlish in hot and humid Orchard Road. It felt like a mega transplant. Pleasurable though, very.

Home is where the food is!


That's me in happy land after landing some awesome chilli crab after 30minutes of queueing. And I got the claw, after a wide-eyed smile.



With the Shoe and her new glasses.