A trivia of collective nouns

Four and twenty blackbirds

I have always been fascinated by collective nouns, some so interesting you wonder how they come about. On my walks a few days ago, I came across an interesting sight, blackbirds I thought were crows or even rooks had settled upon the poles of a fence, but when I was speaking to the lady with her companion that feeds the birds, the other day, I used the collective noun embarrassment which I knew was wrong and she suggested parliament.

A parliament of rooks or a murder of crows

A parliament of crows, I thought when I next went by, but it was another few days before I saw a sufficient number settle on the poles of the fences to make it necessary to take a picture and tell a story. Then, she might be correct if the blackbirds were rooks rather than crows; the collective nouns are, a murder of crows or a parliament of rooks. Apparently, the collective noun for crows comes from superstition; the belief that they are harbingers of death sent by the devil or are witches in disguise.

An embarrassment of SANs

Rightly, it is an embarrassment of pandas, but I have also applied that collective noun to SANs, SeniorAdvocates of Nigeria, senior lawyers that the influential troop to the courts to intimidate the prosecution and the bench, usually in the tens that the cost of justice is prohibitive even when the defendant is guilty as sin but has more legal firepower than the state can muster.

I will not go into the list of collective nouns, but one that anyone would love to know for trivia is the collective noun for geese, they are a gaggle of geese on land, a skein of geese in flight and a plump of geese in water. Never give the wrong collective noun to the appearance of things or you are set for, should I say, am embarrassment?

References

Country Life: Collective nouns for birds

Merriam-Webster: A Melody of Harpers and a Poverty of Pipers

Wikipedia: List of animal names

The high tides of River Irwell

Just walking along

I generally take a standard route for my walks with some subtle variations to the path whilst not wandering off to give me something from 9 kilometres to 12 kilometres of brisk walking exercise in the morning. How I set off usually determines how well I perform, though I am sometimes shocked that there are times I have spent over 11 minutes to a kilometre when I have once managed under 6 minutes.

What gives me the most pleasure is getting 7 kilometres done in under 60 minutes, it means I should average 8 minutes 30 seconds to the kilometre. Usually, if I get 5 kilometres into 41 minutes, I know I can do it.

Not slow, big flow

One fascinating feature of my walks is the River Irwell that meanders through the City of Manchester and the City of Salford, serving as the boundary between them. I will cross the river about 6 or 7 times and up to 5 kilometres can be walking beside the river.

The river course of River Irwell - Wikipedia

I now have an eye for the currents of the river, the sedentary and fast flows, the latter which I noticed today and by the time I reached the bridge crossing into Peel Park, the river was the fullest I had ever seen it. Apparently, the river from the flood gauge can measure from 0.78m to 3.00m, the highest was 5.67m on the 26^th of December 2015, it was even much higher during a flood in Victorian times. In 1866, the river rose 14 feet (4.3m) above its normal levels.

Today, the embarkment towpath of the river was completely covered with water apart from the slipway, it was a murky brown flow and the tide was at 2.495m when I arrived at Peel Park and still rising to a peak of 2.733m at 9:30 AM. [Flood Information Service: River Irwell]

Tidal readings of River Irwell this morning.

If I had wings

The quiet feel of nature before the cities rise is calming and except for the kilometre indicators from my phone, I stopped listening to music or wearing earphones. The birds of River Irwell are a spectacle, sometimes, I have to walk through lots of guano. They never go hungry as there are people who have weaned the birds and ducks on a diet of bread.

Our local birdwatchers have sighted sand martins, blackbirds, Canada geese, great tits, wood pigeons, carrion crows, jackdaws, little grebe, starlings and much else. If only I could tell one bird from another apart from their generic names. [All bird references courtesy of The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)]

River Irwell at Peel Park this morning. (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

The rebirth of Palmitos Park

Was good the first time

I first went to Palmitos Park [1] just over 4 years ago in the company of a female couple who had broke away for a week of passion from a loveless marriage and a hateful mother.

We had such a wonderful day and walking through the park was such an experience, I always wanted to visit again.

The fury of a sacking

Then in July 2007 fires viewable by satellite engulfed forests of Gran Canaria and destroyed about 70% of the park where some of the rare animals also perished.

The fire was an arsonist attack by someone who had been laid off and whilst someone demanded the death penalty for his outrageously heinous and destructive act that caused untold amounts of suffering and huge compensatory bills a more serious matter was ignored.

The fact that in many cases a person’s job is the centre of their stability and sanity, they are humans first, with feelings, responsibilities and concerns which if not properly addressed in the management and administrative desires to streamline, downsize and restructure can lead to irreparable consequences.

Open again for business

The proprietors of Palmitos Park immediately took on the task of rebuilding the park and bringing it back to its former glory with even more to show to amuse, impress and enthral.

The park opened again to the public on the 4^th of August 2008 and I decided I would visit again to see the place and see how it had recovered.

Set in grounds, well, not grounds but a gorge that has been landscaped in a melding of nature and human influence covering about 200,000 square metres, it is mainly a botanical garden and an aviary, but there are mammals, reptiles and fish there too.

Crazy thoughts and amazing results

The best part of an afternoon can easily be spent there, taking you to elevations so high with breath-taking views and then into deep gullies all accessible with properly sign-posted exhibits around the park.

A site is dedicated to how much destruction the park suffered and the regeneration process; all the pictures would be uploaded in due course.

One thing I find most fascinating about this park is that many years ago some mad visionary would have prospected for the land to build the park and the land owners might have thought he should be certified.

I chatted to an older couple there and considered how overwhelmed they would have been if they were presented with all that land on an idyllic island to make the magic of an abode talk less of a tourist attraction of international repute and significance.

Taming the landscape

The Canary Islands are full of crazy ideas of 20 or 30 years ago that have become landmarks of the must-see variety, what these people have done is to combine that quality of genius and imagination with the altruistic goal of conservation and produced these amazing attractions.

Like I have written of before architects are no more afraid to build into the hills, gullies and literally untameable landscape; I think the courage to do these things came from the madness that drove the other men to tame landscapes that once looked like they would remain pristine through to eternity.

If you are ever in Gran Canaria, make Palmitos Park a compulsory destination on your itinerary, even if you did nothing else.

Source

[1] Palmitos Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia