Birds and Cardinals
May. 8th, 2025 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkMy gf and I went on a guided tour about bird voices today. I had a good time :) Even though my body is clearly in ~vacation crash mode, as in "oh I can relax now? Excellent, you don't need that energy anyway, I can go back to being (half-)sick."
The guide said there are even more birds audible in the morning than in the evening, but it was more than enough for me, I already struggled enough with telling them apart and remembering their calls. There might be a handful I might be able to recognize now maybe, like the chiffchaff and the spotted woodpecker, and some others I'll suspect a lot, like the blackbird and the chaffinch and the great tit and the blackcap (I didn't even remember hearing about that last one but they clearly sing frequently and prettily.)
For fifteen minutes it was also much harder to hear the birds because of the church bells, I didn't even realize that was longer than usual until about halfway through and then someone said why.
We also saw several wild boars! Saw them quite well even, since I conveniently had binoculars with me (borrowed from my mom.) And we saw a caterpillar that seemed to float in the air above the path, meters away from any trees.
I'm glad I managed to watch Conclave before the actual one happened ^^ A very pretty movie. Good cinematography - if I knew more about movies I would probably have better words for it, but I liked how they used colors and space. The ritualistic environment was also very good. I already knew who would become pope in the end but none of the details. It took me a while to be able to tell all the faces/characters apart at first but I managed in time to follow the plot.
I liked the characters, especially Bellini because of how flawed he is. Also Lawrence. I thought the ending was almost too quick, Benitez being elected almost entirely on the basis of one speech, but at this point with so many candidates having been practically ruled out no wonder he looked appealing.
eglantiere pointed out just how generous the movie is to the church in that all of the cardinals are true believers in the church, they just happen to have very different views on what that means. (Tedesco not having any scandals and "just" being an extremist also fit that well.) While in reality I'm convinced there are a lot more mundane concerns - though maybe that's me being cynical.
The guide said there are even more birds audible in the morning than in the evening, but it was more than enough for me, I already struggled enough with telling them apart and remembering their calls. There might be a handful I might be able to recognize now maybe, like the chiffchaff and the spotted woodpecker, and some others I'll suspect a lot, like the blackbird and the chaffinch and the great tit and the blackcap (I didn't even remember hearing about that last one but they clearly sing frequently and prettily.)
For fifteen minutes it was also much harder to hear the birds because of the church bells, I didn't even realize that was longer than usual until about halfway through and then someone said why.
We also saw several wild boars! Saw them quite well even, since I conveniently had binoculars with me (borrowed from my mom.) And we saw a caterpillar that seemed to float in the air above the path, meters away from any trees.
I'm glad I managed to watch Conclave before the actual one happened ^^ A very pretty movie. Good cinematography - if I knew more about movies I would probably have better words for it, but I liked how they used colors and space. The ritualistic environment was also very good. I already knew who would become pope in the end but none of the details. It took me a while to be able to tell all the faces/characters apart at first but I managed in time to follow the plot.
I liked the characters, especially Bellini because of how flawed he is. Also Lawrence. I thought the ending was almost too quick, Benitez being elected almost entirely on the basis of one speech, but at this point with so many candidates having been practically ruled out no wonder he looked appealing.
eglantiere pointed out just how generous the movie is to the church in that all of the cardinals are true believers in the church, they just happen to have very different views on what that means. (Tedesco not having any scandals and "just" being an extremist also fit that well.) While in reality I'm convinced there are a lot more mundane concerns - though maybe that's me being cynical.
