Picspam - Crossrail, Crow, Fungi, Squirrels, Mandarins, a Chinese Barge and a Pretty Flower

[ffutures]

I haven't made a picspam post in a while, so it's time for another selection.

First, some track being transported into the Crossrail tunnels, and a weird little engine which presumably has some special function

(later) I think that the bigger engine is a normal diesel that brings them to the tunnel, the white engine is an electric shunting engine of some sort to take them into the tunnel.









Next, a big crow that was watching me when I passed a construction site yesterday.







A colony of weirdly coloured bracket fungi I noticed by the canal a couple of weeks ago:









A very friendly squirrel that came begging for nuts in the park last week - the second picture is with an infra-red filter, anything that shows white reflects infra-red:







A pair of Mandarin ducks I saw on the canal last week:











A Chinese restaurant on a barge - there's a coot's nest to the right. This is where I've seen a cormorant a couple of times, but not so far this year.





And a rather pretty but very small flower I saw by the canal today, but can't so far identify. I don't know if it's native to Britain or something escaped from a garden. Anyone know?

Comments

[uninvitedcat.livejournal.com]

::squints:: I think the plant is an anemone (https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fflowerinfo.org%2Fwp-content%2Fgallery%2Fanemone-flower%2Fanemone-flower-6.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fflowerinfo.org%2Fanemone-flowers&docid=kDWsPcpyBZry4M&tbnid=mLc901y2NYXNVM%3A&w=486&h=500&bih=672&biw=1024&ved=0ahUKEwi_qcy1k57MAhVVGsAKHWscBIYQMwglKAMwAw&iact=mrc&uact=8)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm not a botanist - my biology background is mostly zoology - but it sounds plausible.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I think you are right :)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The crow clearly wanted to know what you'd brought for him to eat.

And yes, I guess while they tunnel maybe isn't fully ventilated, they don't want diesal fumes in it. Saw an interesting documentary recently about when they were diggint the tunnels for the hoover dams, and they drove a lot of diesel trucks in there, and a whole bunch of people actually died from it.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

He was on the other side of a steel fence - I took the picture through the bars - and didn't fly over to take a closer look, so he can't have been that hungry. The funny part was that the surface he was walking on made little "tink tink" noises as he walked around, so it sounded like he was stomping around really angrily. Too much ambient noise from the construction and railway behind him so I couldn't record it.

There are a lot of stories about deaths on the Hoover dam, it seems to have been one of those projects where health and safety took a back seat to political expediency.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Apparently the workers all went out on strike about the numbers of deaths, but they were crushed mercilessly. Mass firings, and mass hirings of new workers who would shut up and just accept the mortality rate.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The fungi is strangely beautiful.

I want to eat at that Chinese restaurant so much; I wonder if their duck is always incredibly local? :) And possibly Mandarin.

Talking of which, I especially love the Mandarin duck who is wearing his head upside down.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've never eaten there, they're a bit expensive compared to e.g. the Chinese fusion all you can eat vegetarian restaurant in Camden High Street, and usually closed when I go by. It's this place if you want a look at the menu:

http://www.fengshang.co.uk

The duck is preening, of course - but it does look a bit odd. If I didn't make it clear, it's just the two mandarin ducks, I didn't see any others yesterday.