The end of the world avoided and Happy Birthday Mom. - 16 May to 22 May

Happy Birthday Mom, I hope you had a great day!

Or maybe he just misspelled it?

So the 21st of May came and went and the end of the world did not materialize. Somewhere in America a TV evangelist is ruing waking up today. What do you do on the day after the world as supposed to end but failed to? "Er... Sorry I must have gotten my dates wrong" doesn't really cut it as an excuse now does it?

We had a "What You Were Doing When The World Ended" dress up party here last night and after we had all had a few drinks talk turned to island life (as it always does sooner or later). Surprisingly, actually not so surprisingly to tell the truth, we are all of the opinion that the hardest part of being here is not the close, inescapable company of others but rather the inescapable company of yourself. It is troubling and counter-intuitive perhaps but since all of us here feel the same way it must be true. Elsewhere there are always easily available distractions from introspection but here you spend a large part of every day alone and during that time it is impossible not to think of your life and evaluate its worth. I think that if you are dissatisfied with yourself on a deep, personal level you would not survive here. I don't mean to suggest that we "islanders" are a cut above the rest or that our lives are particularly special but rather that we are all satisfied with our lives and achievements to this point. I know that much of my satisfaction with my life derives from my family and friends, so thank you for being there for me. Without you my life would be very empty.

Sunrise Wednesday morning

Sunset Wednesday evening - Photo by Michelle

So back to work topics, I have gathered from speaking to a few of you faithful readers of my blithering that there is some confusion as to exactly what I am doing with the captive husbandry of the Moorhens. Basically what it boils down to is this: During the planned attempt to eradicate the mice from Gough, which will happen at some unspecified date a few years hence, the Moorhens and the Gough Buntings are at risk of extinction because they will either eat the poison and/or eat the poisoned mice and die out. Therefore a captive population of both species must be kept during the eradication to restart the island population if needed. As very little is known about keeping captive populations of these species, small scale testing must be done to establish the best method for keeping the birds. I am testing two different methods, a large aviary with eight Moorhens in it and eight small 1m x 1m x 1m cages each with one bird to see which produces better results. I really feel sorry for the Moorhens in the cages, it is a highly unnatural situation and every time I feed and water them they panic. I hope that the panic will reduce as they become more used to me. I would hate to stress them to death!

The last balloon before the world ended

Enjoy the world for as long as it is here!