Item #1: Extra legs
We know this is male because “Once the female lays the eggs she disappears and goes off partying with other males and leaves the male to incubate the eggs.”
That’s not nice.
However, the males seem to be quite smart. Having sensed his chicks were in danger, he tucked them under his wings and carried them around. The chick’s dangling legs are about all one can see of them. At one site, this is described as the male signals to the chicks and the chicks will disappear under his wings. That is, they tuck themselves.
How many chicks do they have at a time? How big can they be and still get under there? Do they push each other around in the process?
So many questions.
Item #2: RIP Ron Joyce 
He was 88. The story begins in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia where the French River meets the embayment of the Waugh River flowing into the Bay. Born in 1930, and leaving at age 15, Roy had a long and interesting life. His first food action was in owning a Dairy Queen.
He was the first franchisee of Tim Horton’s coffee shops, and when the baseball player was killed in a car crash, Ron eventually bought out the owners and began an expansion.
The story is here: Canadian above all else
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Item #3: Ice
Note: Sister Peggy lives near Cleveland.
This funny looking map has some things on it you can ignore.
The interesting part is the patch of blue between Erie and Buffalo. I almost missed Cleveland at the lower left.
Over the past few days, with intense cold in the region, that blue patch has been getting smaller. Today, February 1st, that bit of blue disappeared. Lake Erie surface water is more than 90% covered by ice, that’s the red. Likely now that the wind has dropped and changed direction, the roughness of the water has dropped and the broken ice will fill in to total. The wind change was at about 6 PM on Thursday. But temps are rising fast.
The significance of this for Cleveland and Erie is (a) Lake Effect snow will not be happening (until open water comes back), and (b) the water is not there to help moderate the temperature, so no help from that direction. That won’t matter much.
The wind – very little tonight – is more from the south, temperatures are rising, and will be in the low 50s by Monday.
Other places in the mid-West have had much colder temperature than Cleveland, and will have about a 70 degree change – Wednesday night (30th) to Sunday afternoon.
Here on the Naneum Fan, our weather is getting colder. After Monday, we won’t get above freezing for a week.
Seattle may get snow.
South Lake Tahoe may get 3 feet. Friends there.
Item #4: Not so nice
Washington’s Clark County – southwest near Portland OR – is the center of a measles outbreak. As of today, there are 42 confirmed cases and 7 more being investigated. So far it is known that 37 (with 31 under age 10) were not immunized.
Visitors to the area have now carried the disease back to Hawaii.
State law is permissive about vaccinations. Perhaps, that policy is going to change.
A bill was introduced to the WA House
Item #5: incongruity?
I’m not sure I’ve got the correct word, but close enough. Back in March of 2000, a British newspaper had an article with this in it:
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
Since then there have been several UK winters with severe weather — with snow.
The latest is this week.
Snow to continue
So the question is, when David Viner said “within a few years”, what did he mean? What’s your definition of “a few”?
The video at the link shows a snowy road in Basingstoke. This is a town about 40 miles southwest of London.
Part of the problem is that, in fact, these areas do not get much snow, and do not prepare for it the way, say northern cities in the U. S., would do.
And that, for this week, is the not so nasty news.
John