But there have been buzzards. One low over the woods fringing the Dart, upstream of New Bridge. Sufficiently low to be rather impressive, with the wings looking a lot shorter and fatter than they do when the birds are soaring high. Perhaps they are stretched out more for such a purpose. None of the buzzards' distinctive mewing though. Two more flying over Dartmoor yesterday and a fourth flying a glass case in the lounge of the Two Bridges Hotel. A place which also runs to real fires, a comfortable bar and a comfortable lounge. See reference 1.
And this morning there was the dawn chorus. First up was an owl, hooting away in the distance. Second, a cockerel, much closer. And then the chorus proper with all and sundry joining in, but with nothing else being identified.
Two other discoveries worth the mention.
Firstly an explanation of the mess in Afghanistan in the NYRB. Their story is that the problem is that we are trying to foist western style state structures on a country which is too poor to be able to afford them without a steady & substantial diet of foreign aid - or flow of cash from the sale of heroin. The Taliban, despite its unpleasant fundamentalism, understands this and pitches its activities at a more sustainable level.
And secondly, thanks to M. Patrick Rambaud, I now know about an artisanal wine called 'vin de bouleau', birch sap wine to its cognoscenti, cognoscenti who are to be found in places like Russia, Sweden and Canada. Places where they really need the sugar and alcohol mentioned in the last post. And to think that we could have bought and tried some of the stuff when we were in Ottawa 18 months ago. Whereas now we just have to drool from afar at reference 2. There is also a chap, who likes to make the stuff but is not so keen on drinking it, describing the flavour as 'light, dry and fruity, with a faint piquancy of wet paper bag'.
With thanks to wikipedia for its illustration of the raw materials - coming up, as it often does, with the best, high resolution image on the block. It also teaches me that birch trees share half a name - pendula - with the carex pendula which I mention from time to time. Its name being betula pendula. I leave identifying its close relation betula pubescens to the reader. See reference 3 for the carex version.
PS: I now find that birch sap wine can be bought from the better country products shops in this country. I shall investigate - there are quite a lot of such places in the touristy parts of Devon - and report back in due course.
Reference 1: https://www.twobridges.co.uk/.
Reference 2: http://www.sapworld.ca/products.htm.
Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=carex.
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