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Knowing this bird was a Woodpecker, I judged its features compared to all of the adult birds in the overall family that I know to be regular, if not common, up here. This is one of only a few juvenile male Williamson's Sapsucker that I have ever imaged... or even IDed up here. The clinching field marks are the all black back and the yellow belly. It's quite advanced, but still lacks the red throat. At this time of year I concentrate on juvie images... the young birds change so fast, and quality images are lacking in the usual reference sources. ( I welcome comments and/or corrections to these IDs.) The female Williamson's juvie had been captured in prior years... it's so distinctive that its ID is pretty straight forward. It looks a lot like Mom.
IMG_3405; Williamson's Sapsucker
Boston, Lincolnshire, 27th December 2019. Pentax Espio camera and Kodak Pro Image 100ASA film.
Going back to places passed in the past, not just by me but by generations of my family - my great, great grandparents ran a pub in this neighbourhood.
These are buildings and scenes that I see in my mind's eye daily in my current life, even though I haven't lived in Boston since 1992.
This scene is interesting to me because there used to be an old house on this plot - I am talking late 1970's. As I recall, it was a Victorian place and no one had lived in it for a long time. The rest of the site was a Mercedes Benz/BMW/Subaru garage.
My dad knew various business people in the neighbourhood and I used to visit them with him for his job when I wasn't at school. When I was about 6 we went to look around the house and I remember walking around this empty house. I was a big ABBA fan (because I was completely groovy even then) and I thought of the line "walking through an empty house" and how I was actually doing it. It's kind of scary to realise how popular culture had completely impregnated my childhood mind, and continues to have a "long tail" now into my fifth decade on the planet.
This site was developed over the years and has been shops for ages, and being near a bridge over a big drain it is a busy place where I passed by many, many times in my life when I lived there.
Yet what I see now and what is left of it is meaningless to just about anyone - even me. Maybe this is a way of thinking how "places" are in the heart as much as on the planet.
The Kodak film is not so good for an overcast day, but I had to keep shooting! I realised the Big Mini camera I had been using had stopped working properly when I was trying to use it to take this very photo, so I switched to the Espio. Be prepared!
Even in the end, the story is beautiful knowing more will come again. The end of one of my magnolia blooms and even if the petals are gone, it's beauty still remains I think!! Look at the colors and the textures...still gorgeous :) And, more will come again!! Happy Bokeh Wednesday!
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Listening to Shine by Aswad
Shot from Nikon D300. Lens 105mm Micro Nikkor, f/5.6. ISO 320. Manual Focus.
Processing: Adobe Photoshop: Several adjustment layers and curves for the muted-ness :D
Knowing there's a Hunter show coming up, and that grackle nosebands are not legal in most hunter competitions, with martingales only legal in the jumping portions, I tried Foxtrot in a standard cavesson. We're back to Mr Head In The Air Ex-Racer I'm Not Listening La-la-la again. I love that he's eager to work, but this stuff is so frustrating, when I know he goes so well in a grackle and a martingale. It feels like going back to square one. I think when he was trained for the track, a lot of shortcuts were taken to have him ready to run as a two year old. I love him, I adore him, but I hate what the people who started him compromised on to prepare him for a life of racing. I'm so lucky that Iara, Tango, and Sierra didn't have these shortcuts taken in their training. With this return to old form as soon as I put Foxtrot in hunter legal tack, I feel like he's not ready yet for the show ring. In class, I can cheat, rely on tack to encourage him to do what I want. I can't do that in the show ring. It's a frustrating setback from one point of view, because it reveals just how much of Foxtrot going well under saddle isn't because of training. Do I need to restart him from the ground up?
Knowing this bird was a Woodpecker, I judged its features compared to all of the adult birds in the overall family that I know to be regular, if not common, up here. This is one of only a few juvenile male Williamson's Sapsucker that I have ever imaged... or even IDed up here. The clinching field marks are the all black back and the yellow belly. It's quite advanced, but still lacks the red throat. At this time of year I concentrate on juvie images... the young birds change so fast, and quality images are lacking in the usual reference sources. ( I welcome comments and/or corrections to these IDs.) The female Williamson's juvie had been captured in prior years... it's so distinctive that its ID is pretty straightforward. It looks a lot like Mom. This species is unique in the Woodpecker family in that the males and females are totally different in appearance.
IMG_3082; Williamson's Sapsucker
Hello. It's been a while, quite a while actually. As some of you know, i'm now working fulltime as a teacher. To have a fulltime work and an anxiety from hell have made it hard for me to have time and energy for my photography, i also have performance requirements, about how i'm teaching but also with my photography work. There is no good enogh for me. (Well THERE IS but i have a hard time with it).
But today i have two photos for you. I actually did overcome my fear of "i don't know what i'm doing". And enjoyed expressing myself again. This is my language.
Occoquan National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, Virginia
Holga 120N, Ilford Delta 400
"Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old." ~ Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
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« If you appreciate my work and would like to support me becoming an independent photographer, become a Patreon supporter at www.patreon.com/alexdehaas, or buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/alexdehaas :) »
Knowing I'd promised my mum a good going over her garden while visiting the other weekend, the only chance I'd get for a walk before heading home would be an early one!
With the sun just risen I headed for a route I used as a child and in those days it seemed a right excursion out of the village, in my 'grown up' state Google maps informed me I'd walk there in 16 minutes 🙈
Desktop wallpaper of my new favorite movie "Knowing".
Suitable for Macbook + Macbook Pro resolution .
I changed the background and removed the font so that all you see is good 'old' earth...
God's word｜VII Classic Words on Knowing God Himself , the Unique
70. How many creatures are there living and reproducing in the vast expanse of the universe, following the law of life over and over, adhering to one constant rule. Those who die take with them the stories of the living, and those who are living repeat the same tragic history of those who have died. And so mankind can’t help but ask itself: Why do we live? And why do we have to die? Who is in command of this world? And who created this mankind? Was mankind really created by Mother Nature? Is mankind really in control of its own fate? … For thousands of years mankind has asked these questions, over and over again. Unfortunately, the more that mankind has become obsessed with these questions, the more of a thirst he has developed for science. Science offers brief gratification and temporary enjoyment of the flesh, but is far from sufficient to free mankind of the solitariness, loneliness, and barely-concealed terror and helplessness deep within his soul. Mankind merely uses scientific knowledge that the naked eye can see and the brain can comprehend to anesthetize his heart. Yet such scientific knowledge cannot stop mankind from exploring mysteries. Mankind does not know who is the Sovereign of all things in the universe, much less does he know the beginning and future of mankind. Mankind merely lives, perforce, amidst this law. None can escape it and none can change it, for among all things and in the heavens there is but One from everlasting to everlasting who holds sovereignty over everything. He is the One who has never been beheld by man, the One whom mankind has never known, in whose existence mankind has never believed, yet He is the One who breathed the breath into mankind’s ancestors and gave life to mankind. He is the One who supplies and nourishes mankind for its existence, and guides mankind up to the present day. Moreover, He and He alone is whom mankind depends on for its survival. He holds sovereignty over all things and rules all living beings beneath the universe. He commands the four seasons, and it is He who calls forth wind, frost, snow, and rain. He gives mankind sunshine and brings the coming of night. It was He who laid out the heavens and earth, providing man with mountains, lakes and rivers and all the living things within them. His deed is everywhere, His power is everywhere, His wisdom is everywhere, and His authority is everywhere. Each of these laws and rules is the embodiment of His deed, and every one of them reveals His wisdom and authority. Who can exempt themselves from His sovereignty? And who can discharge themselves from His designs? All things exist beneath His gaze, and moreover, all things live beneath His sovereignty. His deed and His power leave mankind with no choice but to acknowledge the fact that He really does exist and holds sovereignty over all things. No other thing apart from Him can command the universe, much less can it ceaselessly provide for this mankind.
from “Man Can Only Be Saved Amidst the Management of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
You Might Also Like: God is my strength
Knowing others is Intelligence, knowing yourself is true Wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true Power. (Words from Tao)
Knowing that another batch of snow was coming, I made myself do a drive SE of the city two days ago. I didn’t feel at all like going out, but I think I was out for about 5 hours total. I also needed to check what my car was doing. It worked fine until I was way out east, but when I turned around to start going home, all the lights went out on my dashboard again. They did come on twice, but just very briefly. With sunglasses, I could see nothing, but without sunglasses on I could just make out a few faint numbers. Nothing at all on my GPS screen. I did think about driving straight to Honda again, but then thought that if I took it in, then I would no doubt be collecting it when we were getting the new snow. I will definitely be taking it in, though, as soon as possible.
The very first thing I saw on my drive was a coyote – extremely distant and I was looking at it, wondering if it was a small, dead bush, until it suddenly got up and ran, ha. No photo.
Also took photos of various old barns and sheds, including several new-to-me ones. Called in at Herronton, too, just to take a few shots of the old grain elevator.
Not much at all in the way of birds, apart from two very distant flocks of Gray Partridge, a Rough-legged Hawk, and one extra special sighting. When I was driving westwards on my homeward drive, I suddenly realized that it looked like something white on top of a light pole, right at the intersection before I was going to turn north. A beautiful female Snowy Owl! A few huge truck trailers and other vehicles driving just there, yet the owl chose that pole. I was only sitting in my car for a handful of minutes, and she was looking away from me, apart from two or three quick glances in my direction, so there was no point in taking lots of identical shots. Not the greatest photos, as they were taken through the windscreen. I was SO thankful to see her, as this was the first Snowy Owl of this year for me. Very soon, they will all be flying way up north till next winter.
After driving from Nova Scotia the night before I woke up to a foot of snow with more falling in Drummondville. Knowing that there was no point driving to drive through Montreal I headed south to Farnham in hopes that there would be some rail action. I spent most of the morning shooting the action around the yard.
The Walker Dam – Its Past, Present and Future
28 years I have lived in Aberdeen, never knowing this beautiful piece of land was less than a 15 minute drive through the city centre from my home.
I visited today 3rd May 2018, and walked the whole area taking photos of everything that lured me, on my walk I saw herrons, mandarin ducks , mallards etc, it was a joy.
The weather was overcast though warm and bright, I will revisit in the summer on a golden day to get the best of this beautiful area of Aberdeen.
The Walker Dam, with which many Aberdeen citizens are so familiar, is only a fraction of the size it was when - in the 1830s - it was constructed in accordance with the plans drawn by
Aberdeen’s first City Architect, John Smith.
From the second quarter of the 19th century to the early 20th century the dam was a deep and massive body of water which extended from its present location, eastward, to Springfield Road – then called Walker Dam Road – where its sluice gate would have been opened at the beginning of the working day to allow water to rush through a culvert under the road, then south-east through a deep man-made channel (which is still evident today) to feed the steam condensing ponds of the Rubislaw Bleachfield, the property Richards and Company, textile manufacturers.
Today this treasured green space is one of Aberdeen City Council's 'Local Nature Conservation Sites', the 'Walker Dam and Rubislaw Link', which is a 3.9 kilometre walk along
a series of connected paths and streets. Popular with dog walkers, joggers and ramblers, the future of this valuable charming landscaped area with its semi-natural habitats, has been secured by the initiatives and work of 'Friends of Walker Dam' who are registered with 'Keep Scotland Beautiful' - a Scottish environment charity – which, independent of governmental finance and influence, is committed to the improvement of people’s lives and the places they care for.
The Friends of Walker Dam work in partnership with Aberdeen City Council to deliver the standards of maintenance and the plans for future improvements to this amenity site.
Mr Allan Davidson, Treasurer of Craigiebuckler and Seafield Community Council who is also a member of Friends of Walker Dam, has frequent meetings with the City Council's Environment Manager.
Those meetings have been very productive and improvements to the site have already been achieved.
For example, there has been a clean-up of the Dam and the
burn which flows into it; improvements have also been made to the path on the South bank of the dam, which is part of Aberdeen's core path system. The Walker Dam sign has also
been repainted.
In the near future, a bridge will be constructed at the East bank of the dam to connect its North and South banks - thus making both banks accessible for the enjoyment of visitors to
the dam. This significant infrastructural improvement has been made possible by a final act of generosity by Aberdeen Greenspace Trust. Local Councillor Martin Greig is a member of Greenspace and worked to ensure a donation of £8000 from the Trust towards the upgrade of the Walker Dam which includes the construction of the bridge, new benches, bins and various paths and tree works. A further enhancement in the area is a community notice
board.
Thanks to the Friends of Walker Dam, Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeen Greenspace Trust and the work of many volunteers, we have much to look forward to.
Walker Dam is located within the former Royal Forest of Stocket, part of the Freedom Lands gifted by Robert I to the burgh (recorded in a charter of 1319). Now it is in the modern
Burnieboozle estate, part of the larger Craigiebuckler estate, which was sparsely populated countryside until the 1950s, when major housing development began in that area.
Walker Dam is bounded by Springfield Road (which replaced a roadway called Walker Dam Road) to the east and Woodburn Gardens to the north.
The dam is fed by the Holburn (‘Burn of the Howe’), which has two head waters, the northern and greater one coming from Hazlehead and through Walker Dam.
The section entering Walker Dam is the West Burn of Rubislaw. The two head streams of the Holburn joined together between Rubislaw Quarry and Springbank Cemetery, and this united stream fed the steamcondensing
ponds at Rubislaw Bleachfield before flowing eastward together as far as Hartington Road, where they separate.
The south branch, the original burn, crossed Union Grove and passed under the old Holburn Bridge, while the north branch, an artificial mill-lead, went to the Upper and Lower Justice Mills.
As a consequence, Walker Dam was at one time closely associated with the city’s milling operations and, especially, with textile manufacturing. In the nineteenth century it was a resource integral to the firm once called Maberly’s (established between 1808 and 1811) and later Richards, which had the Broadford Works on Maberly Street and which was
the principal user of the bleachfields. An 1866-67 Ordnance Survey description of Walker Dam gives it as ‘a very large dam built by the proprietors of the Rubislaw Bleach Field for their own use.’
Bleachfields were a development of the eighteenth century Scottish textile and thread industries. The first bleachfield in Scotland was established in the late 1720s as an alternative to
either small, burnside bleaching operations which were of variable quality, or sending the unbleached cloth to England, Ireland or Holland for treatment.
In March 1801, the lands of Springfield were offered for sale. They were described as comprising about 63 acres, ‘inclosed and subdivided’, and held feu of ‘the Community of Aberdeen’ at the annual feu-duty of £2 14s 2d sterling. A large house was included in the sale, and it was noted that ‘the dam for the Justice-mills is situated within this property, and the millburn
passes thro’ it, by which considerable benefit may be derived by a purchaser.’
In 1833 Aberdeen Town Council agreed to have Walker Dam cleaned out and deepened, in partnership with Messrs Richards and Company, manufacturers in Aberdeen.
Richards was the instigator of the plan, to which the Council agreed because the work was expected to be ‘highly
beneficial to the Upper and Nether Justice Mills by affording them an additional supply of water,’ and authorised it providing that the Town’s share of the costs would not exceed £20; the work would be executed under the sole charge of John Smith, Town Superintendant; and Richards, which must not spend less than the Council on the project, should not use this as a means of claiming any right over Walker Dam in future.
In 1837, Richards proposed to the Council that Walker Dam should be excavated and extended, citing an 1829 agreement to this effect between the Town and Messrs Maberly and Company, the previous owners of the manufacturing works now operated by Richards (Maberley’s folded in 1832).
Richards sought a lease of the dam water at a fixed rent once the work had been completed.
The Council remitted consideration of this to a committee previously established to look at a proposal to move Justice Mill Dam westwards to Rubislaw. Early in 1839, the Council
approved the recommendation of this committee that Walker Dam should be excavated and enlarged so that it would hold an additional 700,000 cubic feet of water, again on the grounds that it would provide a more reliable source of water for the town’s mills, especially in the dry
season.
The new capacity of the dam was expected to be more than adequate for the needs of the mills. The estimated cost of the works at this stage was £360: should the eventual cost exceed £400, Richards was to pay the excess.
The company was also to pay the Council £75 a year for its
lease of the water, and would be responsible for repair and maintenance of the extended dam, to the satisfaction of the Town, during the life of its lease. (Richards continued to own rights over the water for several decades.)
After further negotiations, a Council meeting of 15 April 1839 approved implementation of the project and authorised the Town Treasurer to enter into a contract with Richards and Co.
Work included the construction of a spillwater tunnel and breast mound for the dam extension,with additional dykes and the installation of a new cast-iron tunnel pipe and sluice.
The plans,drawings and a detailed specification produced by the Council formed the basis of the contract, signed on 17 April 1839.
The revised estimate of costs based on the plans drawn up by the Town considerably exceeded the original £400 anticipated; the Council minutes do not record the new estimate but note that Richards offered to pay the full amount, on the basis that Richards would receive the original £400 from the Town once the work was completed.
The Council had earlier noted that implementation of the project would require the purchase of an adjacent piece
of land owned by Alexander Bannerman and instructed that he should be approached to sell part
of his property near Springfield
The necessary land was obtained from Bannerman at a feu-duty of £20, recorded in a feu charter of 19 April 1839.
On 1 August 1860, the lands and estates of Craigiebuckler and Burnieboozle, including Walker Dam, were offered for sale by public roup, as part of the sequestrated estate of John Blaikie,
advocate. (John Blaikie went to Spain in 1860, following the collapse of his business and financial ruin. He was a son of James Blaikie of Craigiebuckler, Provost of Aberdeen from 1833 to 1835.) Walker Dam is described in the sale notice as ‘an Ornamental Sheet of Water, from which there is an yearly Revenue of £20 sterling from the Town of Aberdeen’.
The estates evidently failed to sell at the advertised ‘upset price’ (the lowest price consistent with the valuation of a property) of at £5,771 2s 6d, since the estate of Burnieboozle, within which Walker Dam is situated, was again offered for sale on 3 September 1860, now at £5,500, with neighbouring lands at Springfield for sale separately.18 Again it failed to realise this amount and was offered for sale on 5 October 1860 at the further reduced upset price of £5,200.19.
At some point after this date it was purchased by John Stewart, Esq.
The lands of Burnieboozle and Walkerhill were once again offered for sale in August 1865, with Walker Dam included - the sale notice mentions the annual feu-duty of £20 paid by the Town Council on it.20 In early September, the Aberdeen Journal reported that ‘The estates of Craigiebuckler, Burnieboozle, Walkerhill, and others, lately belonging to John Stewart, Esq., were on Friday purchased for the sum of £31,500 by Lauchlan McKinnon, junior, advocate, on behalf
of John Cardno Couper, Esq., lately of Whampoa, China.’ (Whampoa is now usually known as Classifed advertisement inviting tenders for the work, The Aberdeen Journal, 30 Jan 1839.
urgh, had served as an apprentice in the Aberdeen shipbuilding
firm of Alexander Hall and Co. before going to Hong Kong and working with his father in their
own highly successful ship-building and repairing company. By the time he returned to Aberdeen
in the 1860s, he had amassed a fortune. He was involved in a number of Aberdeen business
enterprises and in the Church of Scotland. Couper gave a portion of land close to Walker Dam to
be the site of Craigiebuckler Church, built in 1883, of which he was an elder. He died in January
1902 at the age of 82. His son, Lieutenant-Colonel John Cardno Ogston Couper (1st Highland
Brigade), succeeded to the property but died at the age of 48 in 1913. His widow and two young
children remained at Craigiebuckler; his daughter, Florence, went on to marry the ministe
Dr S. Marshall, 2014
The Council’s Finance Committee visited the dam in the aftermath of the tragic incident and
agreed to recommend the repair of the surrounding walls. They also instructed that information
boards should be erected at the site warning of the dangers. During this site visit, one of the
councillors slipped by the side of the stream entering the dam, and fell into the mud. It is not
clear if the children had similarly slipped and landed in the water, or if they had intended to enter
it.
The future of Walker Dam was the subject of two proposals of 1933. Council minutes of 4 December that year record that Aberdeen Land Association intended to donate to the Council the wooded den lying between Johnston House on Springfield Road and Viewfield Road, on condition the den should be maintained by the local authority as an open space and that the Council pay half the cost of a proposed road to be built along the west boundary of the property.
The Council formally accepted this proposal in January of 1934.26.
Also in December 1933, the City Engineer, Thomas F. Henderson, wrote to the Council’s Streets and Works Committee, which was then looking at the widening of Springfield Road and the layout and construction of a new road between it and Queen’s Road. Henderson asked the
committee to consider the future use of the Council-owned Walker Dam at the same time.
According to Henderson: ‘This dam is formed on a burn which rises in the grounds of Hazlehead and flows through the dam and joins the West Burn of Rubislaw at a point south-east of
Kepplestone Nursing Home and later forms what is known as the Ferryhill Burn.’
On 12 July that year, very heavy rainfall had flooded the electricity works and caused damage to property in
Crown Street and Ferryhill Terrace. To prevent further flooding, the water was run out of the dam on 1 September and although here had been no heavy rain since then, ‘we know that, by controlling the flow at the outlet of the dam we can reduce the risk of flooding in the lower parts
very considerably.
‘In conjunction with the Superintendant of Parks, I have prepared a plan showing how the Walker Dam could be laid out as a pleasure ground where the public could leave Springfield Road and walk through the gardens on to the grounds of Hazlehead.
The superintendant of parks is of the opinion that during storm periods the gardens could be flooded without doing much damage to the grass or plants. As the Dam is the property of the Common Good, I would suggest that the sub-committee confer with the Finance Committee and Town Planning Committee and submit a report.’
The next meeting of full Council on 3 January 1934 agreed that the committee should investigate further, though it also wanted the remarks of the Superintendant of Parks about flooding not doing damage to the proposed gardens to be deleted. Also presented to the Council at the same
meeting was a letter to the Town Clerk from Professor James Ritchie of the University of Aberdeen, suggesting the Council should consider making Walker Dam a bird sanctuary. This
was remitted to Streets and Works Committee for consideration. (The two schemes were possibly
not wholly compatible - some residents opposed turning the site into a pleasure park on the grounds that it would interfere with the natural beauty and the birdlife of the site.)
It seems that these two proposals had been prompted by the threat of the dam being filled in or otherwise scrapped: two days after the Council meeting, a reader’s letter to the
Aberdeen Journal urged that the dam should be improved and made safe for children rather than ‘done away with’.
The writer suggested that a low wall could be built around it, ‘made from the old dykes that have been pulled down in the vicinity’. Whatever enclosure was erected in 1911 after the drowning incident had evidently not endured.
The same edition of the paper published an old photograph of the dam ‘before it was drained’.
This remark referred to the decision to run off the water in the dam the previous year, to obviate flood damage to the surroundings. However, doing so had created other problems – correspondents to the Aberdeen Journal in 1934 complained about the condition of the dam as ‘an evil-smelling mudhole’ and ‘horrible looking and stinking’, especially during hot weather, and recommended that the Medical Officer of Health should investigate.
Whatever schemes were mooted for the dam, they took a considerable time to be implemented.
The better part of two years later, a short Bon-Accord article of October 1935 reports work being undertaken to transform Walker Dam, ‘from its present wild state’.
From the mid-1940s and during the 1950s, Stewart Construction (Aberdeen) Ltd., which was by then the heritable proprietor of the Craigiebuckler estate, built several housing developments on the land around Walker Dam.29
The minute of a meeting of the Links and Parks Committee of Aberdeen Town Council, held on 24 August 1964, notes that the committee considered a report by the Director of Parks and agreed the recommendation that the Council lay out an amenity area on ground lying to the south of the woodlands at Walker Dam extending to c. 0.75 of an acre. This was one of three proposed (and agreed) amenity areas to be created in the vicinity and included in the report, the others being a
strip of ground on the south side of Hazledene Road (c. 0.4 acre), and two strips of ground adjoining Craigiebuckler Avenue (c. 3,150 square yards).
The total estimated cost is given as £1,470.30
By this time Walker Dam had become home to a community of swans. The Press & Journal reported that the Links and Parks Committee of 30 September 1964 considered a letter from the
Aberdeen Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, requesting the committee ban fishing in Walker Dam, so as to protect the swans living on it. The committee recommended no action.
This was the second attempt by the association to have fishing banned: it had submitted a similar request at the previous meeting. The renewal of the request was prompted by the discovery of a cygnet badly injured by a fishing hook and line.
Walker Dam is no longer a swan habitat, but they were a popular feature of Walker Dam for many years. When Walker Dam Infant School opened in 1966, it adopted the emblem of swans on water as its school badge. (The swans have also inspired the song, ‘Walker Dam’, by Aberdeen singer-songwriter Bob Knight.)
A Springfield resident, Mrs Nanette Grieve, had left the Council a bequest on her death in 1955 to
fund the services of a warden to protect them.
At times, much effort was put into ensuring this protection: the Evening Express in 1972 reported that the Council had mounted a vigil of ‘almost Loch Garten proportions’ to see that swan eggs made it to hatching. In previous years eggs had
been stolen or lost due to flooding.
As this suggests, the problem of flooding at Walker Dam, highlighted by the City Engineer in 1933, was still an issue over thirty years later.
In 1965, the Evening Express published ‘before and after’ photographs of the flooded area: the latter image shows Council parks and recreation staff laying out grounds and planting shrubs and other flora capable of surviving immersion for a Craigiebuckler Chartulery (Charter Register of Craigiebuckler, 1958-1959), CA/4/21 in Records of the Royal Burgh and City of Aberdeen, Aberdeen City Archives.
The newspaper also reported that the works were to include provision for the dam water to be diverted at times into a burn, so relieving the pressure and reducing the silting that had caused flooding problems in the past.
A 1969 article in the Aberdeen Press & Journal refers
to Walker Dam being a body of water ‘shaped and even bottomed by the combined operations of the Aberdeen Corporation Cleansing and Links & Parks Departments,’ and to a plan by Links & Parks to provide an amenity walk or nature trail along the course from Johnston Gardens to Hazlehead, via Walker Dam.
Today (2014) Walker Dam (with Rubislaw Link) is a 3.38 hectare Local Nature Conservation Site, run by Aberdeen City Council’s Countryside Ranger Service.33 Comprising a mix of open water, landscaped areas and semi-natural habitats, with a footpath running through it, Walker Dam is animportant recreational and educational resource, being one of the few larger bodies of water in the city.
knowing only the northern Steiermark, one of the federal states of Austria, we wanted to see its capital Graz with its famous and beautiful old town - and some modern contrasts, too
Landtag (state parliament of Steiermark)
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.
Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
Hal Borland, Countryman: A Summary of Belief
Please view the large size to see Rainbow Bridge.
A walk this morning around the fields of my village - always a pleasure and always things to see. How lucky am I?
Not knowing the name of this flower I am calling it the Christmas Flower since it was taken in my son's garden on Christmas Day.
Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Knowing that Mike Peverett was in town, the crew of Washington County train NPWJ, flew white flags in his honor.
Four days ago, 8 August 2015, I decided to drive SW of the city for a while. It was a Saturday, so I thought I would go and check if there were other people parked at Brown-Lowery Provincial Park. I had more or less stopped going into the forest there by myself, especially the last couple of years, knowing that Cougar and Bears can be seen there. All I have seen - so far! - is a Moose on a couple of occasions. The place gives me the creeps, so I usually just walk through the trees closest to the parking lot.
So, this is what I did. Just a minute or two after entering the forest near the trail, I flushed a Grouse, which scared the life out of me. The opposite side of the trail, where I usually find a few mushrooms, had pools of water after the two devastating rain and hail storms that we had very recently, so I couldn't go there. With several cars in the small parking lot, I decided to go just a short way into the park, trying to forget that animals can "smell fear". I did come across a few quite nice mushrooms, but with such a dry, hot summer, this is not going to be a good year for fungi.
The second time my heart started beating really fast was when I was trying to focus on a mushroom and I was aware of a deep, huffing kind of sound coming from right behind me. Turning around, dreading what I might see, I discovered it was just a small Red Squirrel, low down on his/her tree, just a couple of feet away from me. I've never, ever heard a Squirrel make this kind of sound before! Sounded rather like what I imagine a bear might sound like.
Almost back at the edge of the forest, I was happy as can be to hear quite a commotion that I recognized as being American Three-toed Woodpeckers. There were three of them high up a tree, with at least one of them being a noisy, hungry juvenile that was feeding itself but every now and then would want the adult to feed it. These birds are uncommon year-round in Alberta, so it's always a treat to see them - especially three.