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Early summer birdwatching

After the heat of the week before last, we have had four days or so of rain. Driving home late Friday afternoon, after two days in the centre of Bristol, the countryside south of Exeter was green and wet, and the roadside verges lost in cow parsley. The early purple orchids have replaced the primroses, and the steep slopes of the Teign Valley are blurred by trees in full leaf.

I am never quite sure when spring ends and summer begins in this part of Devon, but this weekend it feels that we are on the cusp. As I write this post, Caroline is sitting listening to bird calls on the RSBP website (if you haven’t tried it you should), to fix the sounds in her mind. With the start of summer, it is increasingly hard to watch birds in the tree canopy, but you can still hear them. Walking through Yarner Wood a fortnight ago, the pied flycatchers were easy to spot, but tomorrow when we hope to get out again, it will be harder: deeper shadow and thickening leaf cover. This year we are determined to raise our bird watching game, and learn to identify them by song.

Late April we were in Wales, staying outside Brecon and mixing walking and birdwatching, and since then, and much closer to home, we have been in Yarner Wood (pied flycatchers and ravens), by the Hennock reservoirs (blackcaps and great crested grebes) and out on the northern moor (red grouse and ravens).

The highlight in Wales was climbing Pen y Fan, highest of the Beacons. We started from the Upper Neuadd Reservoir and climbed easily in hazy sun along the old Roman road.

At the gate at Bwlch ar y Fan, we turned left to Cribyn, the tops lost in low cloud. We heard, before we saw, a group of a dozen or so young men, loud and raucous, first on the path down from Fan y Big, and then coming up fast behind us. By this time they were quieter. Each had a pack, though not a Bergen, so we weren’t sure whether they were squaddies or a college trip.

They passed us easily (the speed of the young) and as they did, their two instructors (we met them on Cribyn, and learnt they were junior leaders) were not even puffing. It was somewhat different for us, but we finally reached the top of Pen y Fan, the final stage up the steep stone pitched path reminding us of Snowdon last year. Sunlight, and ravens in the sky.

We were back in Wales, walking with ravens.

Whither the legal profession?

A stellar panel at the University of Exeter’s symposium last Monday on A Hippocratic Oath for Lawyers: Stephen Sedley, Tony Pinching, Andrew Phillips, Andrew Holroyd (the President of the Law Society), Robin Tolson (leader of the Western Circuit), Kim Economides and an introductory paper by Julius Rocca, putting the proposition in context.

The question was raised in Kim Economides’ letter to the Times,

“Should there not be some kind of Hippocratic Oath for lawyers so that, in future, lawyers’ commitment to justice and the rule of law is more than purely rhetorical?”

An excellent event, academic and professional argument at its best, and a lot to think about; and yet, sadly, very few in the audience (and no truth in the rumour that the minute size of the wine glasses the University uses for entertainment puts people off!). Does the profession care enough? The answer it seems is not enough to want to take part in evenings such as this.

Jacques Rogge and his history of China

It was hard to believe the report by Roger Blitz in the Weekend FT about Jacques Rogge

Like most sportsmen, politics barely featured in his upbringing. The 65-year-old Belgian combined a career as an orthopaedic surgeon with an aptitude for yachting that took him to three successive Olympics.

Reading the rest of the article, it seems that he probably passed on history as well,

“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949. At that time it was a country of famine, epidemics, floods and civil war. It had no economy, no health care, no education system and there was 600m of them,” he says. “They had to build that and it was a bumpy road. We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”

Back in 1949, Mr Rogge pointed out, the UK was a colonial power. So too were Belgium, France and Portugal, “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest”. China may not be a role model in the west, Mr Rogge concedes, but “we owe China to give them time”.

It is hard whether to know whether to laugh or cry.

Viva Revisionistas!

This, from Jake Tapper’s Political Punch blog, is Bill Clinton explaining Hillary’s misspeaking

“She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days,” he said, per ABC News’ Sarah Amos, “because she was exhausted at 11 o’clock at night (1) and she started talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. (2)

“Did you all see all that? And oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari,” he said — referring to the Dutch exotic dancer accused by the French of spying for the Germans and executed by a firing squad during World War I — “like she was making up all this stuff.

“And then the president of Bosnia said, ‘Well, it was quite dangerous when she came, there were snipers in the hills all around,’ (3) And then Gen. Wes Clarke, who was there trying to make the peace among the Bosnians, said ‘Yeah, it was dangerous, let me remind you three of the Americans who were on my peace-keeping team were killed because they had to take a dangerous road ’cause they couldn’t go the regular way.’

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Nancy Pelosi was asked about this, she referred to Bill Clinton having a “late night adult moment”. I cannot imagine to what she was referring. It certainly isn’t the sort of late night adult moment I usually have.

Jake Tapper’s subsequent post in Political Punch is excellent,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked about former President Bill Clinton’s error-riddled defense of his wife, regarding her Hemingway-esque accounting of her 1996 trip to Bosnia.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why the president would have said it except he may have been having a late night adult moment,” Pelosi told CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “but let’s leave it at that.”

Kind of harsh for a House speaker to say about a former president.

And ABC News’ Sarah Amos points out that Bill Clinton’s comments were hardly “late night” — having been uttered at 3 in the afternoon and again at 5 pm.

Somebody buy these Democrats some watches.

But then again, Bill Clinton’s late night adult moments usually took place in mid afternoon.