Friday 28 January 2011

Boids

It is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend! Take an hour to count all the different birds that are in your garden and record them on the RSPB website. See here for details.

Don't worry about seeming uncool, birdwatching's totally in style right now! Camp out in your garden with a stool, sandwiches, notebook and wine box (what?) and you have the makings of a great afternoon. All the cool kids are doing it and birds are cute. We were terribly excited a couple of winters ago when some waxwings began to visit the back of the library to partake of the berries which grow beside the staff car park.

Yeah, you read right, we were excited by birds. We are librarian/archivists okay, whaddya expect?


Aaaagggh!!! They're so tame and cute!!

Below are some images taken from a book of Orkney postcards, each stamped, clearly dated and filed in a Stanley Gibbons folder. Other images shown include St Magnus Cathedral, The Churchilll Barriers, The Old Man Of Hoy, Dounby. Firth, Skara Brae, Stromness, The Standing Stones of Stenness and various other local scenes. The dates range from 1967 - 1971. Also included at the front of the album are four date stamps on squares of paper dating from 1848 and 1852.

I have also scanned a list of (stuffed?) Orkney birds which were being offered for sale by a Mr James Petrie in the latter years of the 19th century.









References:  Postcards- D1/1028, List - D1/321/9

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