Around the World in Eighty Days

 I am listening to the book "Around the World in Eighty Day" by Jules Verne, published 153 years ago, in 1872 !

I was made aware of the book many years ago from posters for the titled movie. I got the impression that the adventurers travelled around the world in a giant balloon. Earlier this year in a lazy night, we got nothing planed, and stumbled on to the 2004 version movie, and watched the adventure comedy. I was surprised to see that the trip was not fully on balloon. Two parallel storylines evolved in this movie. The first was that there was a robbery at Bank of England, a jade Buddha was stolen, the other storyline was Phileas Fogg, the adventurer, who placed wager against Lord Kelvin, 20,000 pound, that he would make a trip around the world in 80 days. Fogg had a valet or servant Passepartout who travelled with him. Later on the two added another companion Monique. While the trio were trying catching trains, steamboats to complete their trip around the world in 80 days, a group of militia was chasing them to comprehend Passepartout, which was the robber at the bank of England. Many twists and suspense along the way, some totally unreasonable, they returned to London in 80 days, travelled around the world in 80 days, and Fogg won the wager. 

The 2004 "around the world in 80 days" is a lousy movie. However it made me interested in finding out what the story was in the famous book. I did a little bit research on the book, and its movie adaptions.

1956 movie poster

2004 movie

There are 5 movie adaptions of the book from 1919 to 2021 by German, American(2), Australian and French movie makers. The best of the 5 was the 1956 version, which won 5 academy awards including best pictures.

• 1919: A German silent adventure comedy film
• 1956: An adaptation starring David Niven
• 1988: An Australian animated adaptation
• 2004: An adaptation starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan
• 2021: A French animated adaptation

After watching the 2004 version movie, I found an audio version of the original book, my first impression was that the writing was dry, plain, and kind of boring. Getting deeper into the story line, the style of writing actually fit the main character Phileas Fogg, an eccentric, emotionless, solitary English gentleman. The story in the book was quite different from the 2004 movie: the book did have the two parallel storylines - robber and chasing the robber,  and travel around the world in 80 days. Each story line was very different from the movie. On the robber side - the servant was an honest and earnest Frenchman, Fogg was the suspect. There was no Chinese militia, and no travel into China, but Hongkong, which was British colony at the time. But there was a detective trying to comprehend Fogg. On the adventure side, there was no balloon involved at all, the woman on the journey was a Indian women Aouda that Fogg and his servant rescued from a religious sacrifice  ceremony. 

In a way it is interesting to read/listen to a 150 year old book, it allowed me to look into the world 150 years ago: there have been a lot changes from then to now, for example we can travel around the world in two days by commercial airplane instead of 80 days; but we won't see herds of Bisons* which took 3 hours to cross a railroad and blocked the train that carried Fogg and group. But there are a lot in life that have not changed: as human being our morale changed little  - empathy is appreciated, loyalty is cherished, and love is universal**. I don't feel the people and life described in the book any different from people nowadays. 

 Notes

*The railroad in the book in continental US might be fictious but the fact that there were millions of Bisons during 1870s is true.

** Aouda, the Indian women, fell in love with Fogg for his earnest caring, quiet demeanor, and generosity. Fogg fell in love as well, for her beauty, tenderness, and care. They got married at the end of the adventure. 

*** travelling around the world without enjoying the trip, see sceneries, visit cities, ...travel for the sake of travelling is nuts! that's actually what the servant said to Fogg the adventurer. 

Capture A Perfect Photo of a Blue Tailed Bee Eater

Blue tailed bee eaters, like other bee-eaters, is a colorful, slender bird. It is predominantly green; its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; the tail is blue and the beak is black. It is widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia. 

I took some good bee eater photos, especially blue tailed bee eaters. But almost all of the photos were stationary, a bee eater perched on a bare branch. 

A perfect bee eater photo would be the bird has a bee or other insect in its beak with wings expanded. 

Two weeks ago I went to Hampstead wetland park for the sole purpose of bird watching.

A blue tailed bee eater

Hampstead wetland

There were quite a few birds there, blue tailed bee eaters come and go - resting on the snag tree in the middle of the pond. Great for taking bird pictures.

A bee easter or two would rest on the snag tree, and take off to catch bugs. I took a few good stationary pictures. Then I decided to try to take a prefect photo of the blue tailed bee eaters. 

the blue tail

red-brownish throat

Initially I tried to take a picture of the bird taking off with wings expanded. It is extremely hard to take such photo on a single shoot. I changed the exposure setting to continuous shooting. But my timing of its take off was not good enough.

I then changed to try to capture a bee eater's return to the snag tree, aiming my lens at its favorite perch. I got some good shoots, but not good enough.

After a couple more tries without success, I stopped taking pictures and analyzed the situation. I concluded that it was too late to push the shutter button when the bird appeared in the viewfinder.  So I decided to push the shutter button before the bird reached its perch,  a few yards away from its perch, outside of my camera's view. 

In so doing, I found out that the bird fly to its perch from below, land on the perch, balance itself upon landing by flapping its wings, before getting the hold of the perch

I finally got the perfect picture the blue tailed bee eater: a bee in its beak with wings expanded. 

my perfect photo of a blue tailed bee eater

a bee in its beak

 

The Heaven for Sunbirds

It was sunny, breezy, and cool last Sunday morning at Symphony lake. The parakeet flowers were blooming, so were banana flowers.

parakeet flowers 

A sweet smooth bird call reached my ears, I looked around, a magpie robin was singing on top of a small light post. Just then another magpie robin flew in to land on the post. The singing bird tried to deter the incoming bird by running toward the newcomer, and then back to its old spot keep making calls!

Just then an olive backed sunbird landed on the flower right in front me started drinking nectar from it. This is a regular scene for us, nothing special, we kept walking. 

A red bird came into view - a crimson sunbird landed on another flower plant. It circled around the stem, and moved up and down drinking the nectar as well. It did not fly away when we got closer, but kind of posed for us to take pictures! This time I noticed the thin double black strips on its bright red throat for the first time. That's something new.

olive back sunbird

crimson sunbird

Away from the flowers, one olive backed sunbird landed on a big leaf full of morning dews, started to roll in it, rubbing itself against the dews on leaf. Nearby a female olive backed sunbird flew to a flower petal from below, seemed to drinking the dews on the leaf, not the nectar.

A juvenile olive backed sunbird (per coloration on its neck) was resting on big flower petal, looking around.  

flying to the petal from below, drinking water?

this olive backed sunbird might be a juvenile based on the coloration at throat 

As these were not amazing enough, a female olive backed sunbird landed on a pink banana flower, started to drink nectar. Shortly later, a male olive backed sunbird landed on the same flower. The female quickly scuttled to hide under one petal! After a while, it flew away!

Another pair of sunbirds appeared in the view, might be the same pair as those on the banana flower?

It is mating season. I saw a sunbird building a nest nearby a couple days ago. There must be several bird nests around there. 

In all that time, the sunbirds kept foraging,  kept making calls, the chorus of bird songs kept going.

The flower field is a heaven for the sunbirds!

Black Swans Incubating at Echo Lake

We see Black Swans at botanic garden pretty regularly. What we saw this past Thursday was special!

On Thursday, February 6, we finished our dinner early and went to Echo Lake area for a walk. It was still bright. A family of 4 black swans was wandering on the paved road on east side of the lake. When they reached a gate which blocked their path, they paused for a few seconds and turned around. They walked toward the lake shore. Apparently they were exploring the surroundings.

They are so used to human, they may pause for a moment if people are too close to them, they are otherwise oblivious to the pedestrians around them. Nothing special.

When we turned the corner and walked toward the boardwalk over the lake, we were pleasantly surprised to see an adult male swan* standing over a nest with 5 eggs inside! It was the first time I witnessed the black swan incubating. Another adult, female*, black swan was nearby, eating its dinner!

While we were there, the male swan did not really sit on the eggs, but just stood over it. Another interesting observation was that there was a turtle next to the eating swan. I saw the turtle inched forward to the dish, and eventually started to eat the swan's dish. The swan initially did not do anything, having its own meal until the turtle tried to get into the dish. The swan pecked the turtle, the turtle retreated a few inches away from the dish. The swan continued eating.

The turtle was eating swan's food

We took quite a few pictures there. When we were leaving, the 4 black swans we saw earlier, were in the water now, two in the front, closer to us, two in the back.

On Saturday morning February 8, I went back to the lake to check on the incubating swans. The nest was fenced by a black screen to reduce the disturbance to the incubating swans and the eggs.

This time, it was the mum swan incubated the eggs, sitting on them, not standing over. The dad swan was eating quite a bit far away from the nest. A turtle was near the eating swan again, a clever parasite!

The other 4 swans were around as well, walking on the paved road!

the mum swan sat on the eggs, did the real incubation

the picture was taken over the black screen

the dad swan was eating with a turtle nearby in the water

​Unexpectedness and Serendipity make wildlife watching thrilling and exciting.

Notes -

* How could I tell the black swan's gender? Male black swan is typically larger in size, and has a bright red beak, the female has a pinkish beak. Since the two black swans were not standing side by side, I identified the gender by the color of their beaks.

0) Black swan parents take turns to incubate. 

1) more information can be found in a blog about swans in general 

2) facts about black swans - native to Australia and New Zealand, lifespan ~ 40 years, incubation 35-48 days, when hatching, baby black swans, cygnets have grey hairs, fledging 150 - 170 days, they reach sexual maturity in 18-36 months for reproduction.