I miss house sparrows! In our last-but-one house – where we lived when I first really started paying attention to birds – we used to get lots of house sparrows. At the time I thought "how dull, we hardly get any birds in our garden, and almost all the ones we do get are from this most boring of species". Every time we've moved since then, it's been to a place with greater diversity of bird life (yesterday, I scared a barn owl out of the bushes at the bottom of the garden; and until about a month ago, our house was surrounded by curlews, lapwings, and oyster catchers). But neither of those subsequent houses had sparrows and, man, I miss them!
Last year I got a bird feeder that suckers onto the window. That's a lot of fun! We lie in bed watching the birds come to feed (unfortunately where we are now, most of the birds and the types that visit feeders, so we just get chaffinches and blue tits).
Incidentally, regarding 5G, I also used to be very dismissive about people's concerns around it, but I recently bough Dr Jenny Goodman's book "Getting Healthy in Toxic Times", after hearing her speak on the Accidental Gods podcast, and, wow! Turns out there is plenty of science which indicates that we are damaged by exposure to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum we're not evolved to deal with (perhaps not evidence regarding 5G, as that's pretty new, but 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microwaves. See, for example, the 2020 Consensus Statement of UK and International Medical and Scientific Experts and Practitioners on Health Effects of Non-Ionising Radiation: https://phiremedical.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020-Non-Ionising-Radiation-Consensus-Statement.pdf
And thanks for the book tip - likewise, I've never heard anything other than easily dismissible conspiracy theory-style objections to 5G, but sounds like there is much more going on!
I've only dipped into the book so far but, yeah, certainly more going on. A lot of it is low-level, slow-burning stuff, and so not easily noticed - the thing which EMR seems to have the greatest effect upon is our DNA, and those effects don't really make themselves obvious until we try to have kids.
One anecdote from the book which really struck me though was from when the author was a junior doctor in 1979 - she says that a consultant excitedly summoned her and a number of other medical students to gather around a patient with a brain tumour: "take note, you are very lucky to be seeing this, it is exceedingly rare, and I expect you won't see another case like it in your training or even in the rest of your medical careers". Reader: she did see other brain tumours in her medical career; increasingly many.
I miss house sparrows! In our last-but-one house – where we lived when I first really started paying attention to birds – we used to get lots of house sparrows. At the time I thought "how dull, we hardly get any birds in our garden, and almost all the ones we do get are from this most boring of species". Every time we've moved since then, it's been to a place with greater diversity of bird life (yesterday, I scared a barn owl out of the bushes at the bottom of the garden; and until about a month ago, our house was surrounded by curlews, lapwings, and oyster catchers). But neither of those subsequent houses had sparrows and, man, I miss them!
Last year I got a bird feeder that suckers onto the window. That's a lot of fun! We lie in bed watching the birds come to feed (unfortunately where we are now, most of the birds and the types that visit feeders, so we just get chaffinches and blue tits).
Incidentally, regarding 5G, I also used to be very dismissive about people's concerns around it, but I recently bough Dr Jenny Goodman's book "Getting Healthy in Toxic Times", after hearing her speak on the Accidental Gods podcast, and, wow! Turns out there is plenty of science which indicates that we are damaged by exposure to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum we're not evolved to deal with (perhaps not evidence regarding 5G, as that's pretty new, but 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microwaves. See, for example, the 2020 Consensus Statement of UK and International Medical and Scientific Experts and Practitioners on Health Effects of Non-Ionising Radiation: https://phiremedical.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020-Non-Ionising-Radiation-Consensus-Statement.pdf
And thanks for the book tip - likewise, I've never heard anything other than easily dismissible conspiracy theory-style objections to 5G, but sounds like there is much more going on!
I've only dipped into the book so far but, yeah, certainly more going on. A lot of it is low-level, slow-burning stuff, and so not easily noticed - the thing which EMR seems to have the greatest effect upon is our DNA, and those effects don't really make themselves obvious until we try to have kids.
One anecdote from the book which really struck me though was from when the author was a junior doctor in 1979 - she says that a consultant excitedly summoned her and a number of other medical students to gather around a patient with a brain tumour: "take note, you are very lucky to be seeing this, it is exceedingly rare, and I expect you won't see another case like it in your training or even in the rest of your medical careers". Reader: she did see other brain tumours in her medical career; increasingly many.
A bird feeder with suckers - yes please! 🦉
I'm a sucker for feeders with suckers! Hur hur hur!