Basically what that means is every year we get two blue bird boxes assigned to us to monitor for new nests, eggs and babies.
We record all the information in a database and it is such a great way to get a little escape and relaxation at work.
This year I have the same boxes that I had last year.
If you read the older posts, you will see that we had eggs and baby chicks last year but they never fledged.....something ate them :-(
Such is nature....however, hopefully, this year that has been remedied! We added a nail to the latch system so if it was a racoon that got in, he will not be able to get in this year!! YEAH!!!!
So , here is a little photo journal of what I found last time I checked my boxes....Tuesday of this week!
This is the nature walk at work...about 1/4 miles down this path is where my blue bird boxes are. They have cute signs all the way to let you know where you are, milage, etc. The whole way around is a little over a mile.
This is just a view up ahead as I was walking.....it is soooo pretty down here...never know you were at work!!!
They also put in these signs along the way with exercises, etc. to do while you walk.....sooooo awesome.....this company really supports employee fitness and wellness!! Love it!
Here is what I saw in my box.....it is hard to get the camera in the box without disturbing the eggs so this is as good as the picture gets....
This is a blue bird nest!!! perfectly made....neatly...using only straw...nothing else....beautiful, isn't it?!?!?!
This is the box that had the eggs...the other one had a wasp nest that I proceeded to clean out.
And this is just another view of me walking to other direction on the path......
love it here....love my job.......love my company!!!!!!!!!!!
How cool! I was sitting in the courtyard at work the other day. There are a ton of nests up in the "rafters". I saw a crow take of with a baby bird. It was really sad hearing the other birds freaking out.
ReplyDeleteLast autumn when I did my 25 mile TT for the first time, I had my FTP set at 240 watts. This was based on a number of races I had done, intervals I could hold in training, etc. I showed up at the TT on the knife edge of fatigue, merely a few weeks before Kona. And managed to put down a time of 1:00:49 with 221 watts normative power, 218 watts average power. A full 15 watts fewer than I "should" have been able to do! Hmm.I don't think I overestimated my FTP too much, maybe by 5 watts or so. A few weeks earlier I had done a 10-mile TT (~105% of FTP) on 254 watts so had based my numbers in part on that. Had I been fully rested, I might have been able to hit that 240 watts, or had I been doing Olympic distance triathlon training instead of Ironman, or, or, or... anyway, suffice it to say, I let my fitness tail off after Kona and at Christmas I was back down to an estimated FTP of 220 watts, to be built back up between January and March via cyclocross, winter circuit races and a warm-weather training camp spent on the Canary Islands.Today I showed up -- same course, same time of day, same air temperature and conditions more or less, same equipment more or less, same lack of sleep, though I was less fatigued overall -- and put down a 1:01:59 with 225 watts normative power and 223 watts average power. The rain halfway through and subsequent windier conditions probably was the biggest factor in the slower time (the winner of both races who happened to be the same guy was also 90 seconds slower), though I also wriggled around a lot and cost myself some aerodynamic advantage, having not ridden my TT bike in a while and not being entirely comfortable on it. Yet I still fell 10 watts short of my current estimated FTP, which is set at 235 watts these days and I think is pretty close to reality.
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