Week 4 Writing Assignment CEW

Oystercatcher A13, my usual birthday gift at Ameland, the Dutch island

 

It’s mid-November, and my hubby has all the plans in hands for this usual gift, that is a trip. We go every year to Ameland, – taking a ferry with the car to stay for a few days in one of the cozy and then almost empty hotels of this island, actually one of the most visited by tourists from all over the country. But we are not just the tourists; we have a great birding task, which is altogether part of the gift: to find the black-and-white bird, the Oystercatcher, that carries a very special individual plastic ring, among hundreds of similar ones. “My” Oystercatcher, that is the regular visitor to the Dutch island of Ameland in the non-breeding season, and that flies every year to breed at the White Sea, just above the Polar Circle, in the north-west of Russia. To fly the distance of about 3000 kilometers, the birds need only a few days with good weather and proper wind condition; and they fly it each year, most successful survivors reaching the age of 30 years or more, coming late in spring to the breeding islands, and flying back to the Wadden Sea as early as in August. Getting prepared to this November trip I remember every chance I had to see that particular bird. I ringed it myself in 2002 – and it was then already adult and breeding… It’s a long story to tell, not now in this abstract. 

It’s almost high tide, and hundreds and thousands of shorebirds gather to so called roosts, usually rather high places along the coastline where they can safely stay, - resting, sleeping, or preening, -  in dense often mixed species groups. From the dike, where we first drive by car, I observe the little cape, already familiar in all these years. The birds, staying along the waterline in compact flock, remain so far a bit restless. More and more new piping Oystercatchers arrive, joining the group,  managing to find a spot for themselves after one or two flaps of wings or quick negotiations with the neighbors. Sitting in the car, we can come much closer without any sign that we disturb the birds. Now I use the telescope, which is mounted on the car window, otherwise I cannot really read the rings on the still far away birds. Looking from the car window, I check every bird in the flock, trying to spot the rings. Sure, first I see those that are “not mine”.  Read the rings anyway – it is easy to find later who rings those in other places of the world. It is two hours since we’ve started. My hubby has screened all his newspapers, and patiently switched to the book. He is also a birder, but he has no patience for reading the color rings. And it is my birthday gift anyway! Yes, now I see it, my beloved shorebird! The yellow ring with black A13, – surprisingly still in a very good quality after so many years in use on this very Oystercatcher, - can not only be recognized, but even photographed!   The bird survived another year, and another migration, so I am very happy indeed. 

P.S. Tried to describe the real story – regretfully in November 2012 we did not see it… Hope  my colleagues spot it now at the White Sea, in the nature reserve.

Actually, to add more -  here is the photo of this very bird, Oystercatcher A13 (photo taken by myself also on Ameland in November 2009):

 Enjoy it!

CEW: My Week 3 assignment and related question on peer review

The course is progressing well, really helpful to improve writing in English!
Decided to share my Week3 assignment - because I do not see myself the mistake, that one of the peers obviously spotted - that the verb tense is inconsistent somewhere. Re-read the below text few times - and cannot pot this inconsistency myself. Also regretfully nothing was written on this inconsistency in the comments. Could the forum visitors help? For all the other scores it is 100% of 100%, I am only looking where I was inconsistent in verb tenses.

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Local Street Product Market in the province of Groningen

This is Saturday, and we go with my hubby - as planned few days ago - to the local old estate, called Verhildersum, where the monthly street market of traditional and locally-made products takes place. It's still cold and windy, but the sun shines, adding finally to the feeling that long-awaited spring has come. After somewhat like 15 km drive we park the car, following the instructions given by volunteer youth traffic control, who help the market operate. It's crowded here! Well-known trio of violin-harmonica-guitar players inspires the visitors with somewhat old-style cheerful local music. We stroll along the stalls, looking around. Groups of people, some of them familiar, flock at the most prominent stands - one group enjoys tasting ciders, the other group discusses the flavours of local biologically made sausages and goat cheeses, some other people make their choice of bread and ready-made flour and grain mix. We wave our "hi, dear friend" to the cider stall boss - he lives in the same village as we do, only few houses apart, - and then join the other group with something that seems the most interesting to us: tasting the Wadden Sea local products. The edible gold of the Wadden! Smoked fish, - that was probably still swimming in the sea a week ago, - with slightly pickled herbs from the saltmarsh, first edible flowers from the local gardens, surprisingly tasty seeweed and a bit of natural sea salt. We take little crunchy toasts with every new thing, admire the delicate flavours and tastes, share perceptions, chat of some specifics of the recipies with the "chef" and her assistants, - and finally decide on the first things to buy. We always buy something here - not that it is always a must, but we so much like the atmosphere, and the market, and the local little businesses... It's fun and it's local tradition. We want to support it and be part of it. And it's great scene full of action!

CEW: Week 2. Module 1 & 2. Journal Writing 1 & 2.

TASK:
Journal writing. Module 1 & 2 Writing Activity

In your journal, write down a list of at least five to ten nouns and five to ten adjectives as you observe a scene at home, work, or in your community. Writing 2: add verbs and adverbs. Add a couple of sentences using all four.

DONE:
Looking out of my study room window:

Nouns	Adjectives	Verbs	Adverbs
rain	wet, cold	drizzling, pouring	steadily, unusually
garden	old, wild, green	grow, flourish	rapidly, extraordinary
trees	flowering, beautiful	hang, cover	extensively, well, very
chicken: Frosya + Marusya	funny, white, traditional	search, forage, look	anxiously, curiously, eagerly, patiently
rooster: Vassily	active, brave, loud	fight, protect, call	bravely, fiercefully, steadily, rapidly
cherry	wild, sweet, pink, gorgeous	blossom, stretch, move, smell	utmost, very
tulips	red, purple, amazing	emerge, last, remain, grow	quickly
magpie	curious, smart, black-and-white	fly, tease, feed, inspect, escape	carefully, rapidly, usually, often
car	blue, wet	beep, drive	slowly
clouds	thick, low	hang, move	never

Here I am, sitting in front of the window, and looking out to get inspired for the first writing assignment. 

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The window glass is wet: it's steadily drizzling since early morning, making it another unusually cold and wet day. Said to be the coldest ever spring in the Netherlands. However, our old and rather wild garden grew green rapidly and all the fruit trees are flowering extraordinary well: pink cherries stretch their gorgeously decorated twigs – I forced them to grow in different directions with a complicated system of ropes and fixing rings... Old apple trees, also in extraordinary rich blossom, hang over another corner of the garden. Tulips – this year only in red and purple, to our surprise as we planted many more, – emerged last week rapidly and altogether, but got old quickly, and already lost their last petals in the today's rain. Vassily, Frosya and Marusya, our recently acquired trio of traditional Groningen bantam chicken – nicely colored in white with black stripes and spots, – are slowly walking under the trees. They are steadily searching for food, looking under the leaves for whatever surprisingly tasty, curiously inspecting all the corners, – obviously preferring to remain under the cover of the trees rather than in the rain-proof chicken coop. Is it so boring there in the coop? Vassily, the rooster, fiercefully protects the two hens. It's not only that he calls loudly every half an hour or so, but he bravely attacks and fights whatever or whoever approaches him and his chicken. I love to observe him fighting the Magpie. This black-and-white smart bird, one of the smartest among all Corvids, flies here often – to inspect chicken feeder, and definitely also just to tease Vassily, the rooster. And she always manages to escape just seconds before Vassily really attacks! Brave rooster indeed! He fights not only cats and wild birds, but myself and my husband as well – quite larger, twice turkey-size, competitors for attention of his ladies. Yes, a car moves slowly in: my hubby is home, back from birdwatching. Leave it now then to the gray hanging clouds, and the lyrically singing blackbird in one of the trees – for the family. It's cozy whatever the weather is.

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Week 2 final writing assignment still to be read & done.

Assignment for week 2 also done and submitted for peer review.

Looking forward to get the results!

Coursera

Hi everybody,

I've made this particular blog to be used for various online courses that I'm taking - and for the assignments and other relevant issues reg. these courses. Actually the 1st ever online course I take is part of the great recently found Coursera online education resource: it is called "Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade".

For those who come to check and review my assignments - I am already writing online for years, though much more often in Russian language - but sometimes also in English, and recently even in Dutch.

Have to come back to reading the course materials - but making this open blog was one of the first assignments. For those interested to learn who I am - please google for LenaSwan of for Lebedeva-Hooft (second part of my last name has to be pronounced with long "o", sort of "Oh, (my God)"; it originates from Dutch). I might amend this post later with some links, but do not have time for this now.

I will be taking more online courses, thus will introduce here a system of relevant tags.