The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Another article, Security Is Chief Obstacle To Cloud Computing Adoption, on cloud computing and security.  Last month Gartner had an excellent post.  A Google search on “cloud computing” & “security” yields over 53 millions results.  So, the concerns abound regarding security and I have posted before on how security is one of two critical issues, particularly with CIOs, with cloud computing.  (The other being the “End User Experience.”)

The security concerns are valid and range from loss of control, compliance & legal, data protection, disaster recovery and confidentiality.

But companies, including Amazon, Google,  Microsoft, Saleforce.com have implemented secure cloud infrastructures. Recently, the City of Los Angeles announced that it has just put it’s trust in Google apps for it’s 30,000 city employees.  Salesforce.com, which we use internally at World Wide, is trusted by over 65,000 companies and million users.  In addition to the SaaS firms, there are the hosting and infrastructure as a service companies like Savvis.

My thought is that these companies employ as competent and as strong of  information security and risk management staff as any internal Fortune 500 IT organization.

I’m not suggesting it’s a trivial matter, but overcoming the “security obstacle” is possible.  Besides, it’s not an all or nothing matter.    Two deployment dimensions exists.  First, the cloud paradigm is a continuum between private and public infrastructure.   CIO’s concerned with security can take advantage of cloud technology and start within their own, private four walls.  The second dimension is the type of data.  CIO’s can decide which apps and information they’re most comfortable with moving to the public cloud.

When moving your apps and data to a public cloud, additional options exist for how that information is managed.   Chris Black, leading our federal data center strategy, also reminds me of the cost element associated with the public cloud deployment dimension.  Chris said in an email to me, “Cost is proportional to security.  You can ask that your data [in the public cloud] be isolated and pay for the independent infrastructure and utilize/leverage the operational services. “

Some transactions and information have a lower risk profile and, in fact, CIO’s have been letting millions of bits of private company information exit their four walls to the public cloud for years.  That app? Corporate email.  Payroll is another application with highly sensitive information that has been processed outside of IT’s four walls for years.

There are many sources of information regarding approaching security in the cloud.  The ENISA Cloud Computing Security Risk Assessment is an excellent starter and provides an approach to:

We should not forget that there are actual security benefits associated with cloud computing.  From the same Report:

1. Security and the Benefits of Scale
2. Security as a Market Differentiator
3. Standardised Interfaces for Managed Security Services
4. Rapid, Smart Scaling of Resources
5. Audit and Evidence-gathering
6. More Timely, Effective and Efficient Updates and Defaults
7. Benefits of Resource Concentration

Overcoming the security obstacle is well worth the effort to gain all of the much publicized benefits of cloud computing’s “ilities” (scalability, agility, flexibility) and its service/utility cost model.

Whether you’re at a dead stop (there are very few of you out there) or 15 percent there (like most of you) enterprises appear to be at a virtualization plateau and driving to the next level of relies more on an IT organization’s ability to evolve their people and processes versus deciding on the technology.

Don’t get me wrong, picking the right technology is extremely important–just ask any manufacturer! And much of the technology, like virtualizing desktops,  has matured and CIOs are more confident to deploy.  But not having the skilled people and honed processes are, in my estimation, an order of magnitude more important.

According to HP’s research, the biggest barriers or inhibitors to virtualization are: upfront costs, staff training/experience, gaining approval from corporate management, and infrastructure planning.

At World Wide we recognized the importance of people & processes, so we offer a variety of services including virtualization consulting that assesses an organization’s “operational readiness.” It includes an examination of the “as is”  infrastructure as well as the management tools and processes.   Steve Chambers, a Cisco virtualization evangelist in the U.K,  says that Cisco has put this “readiness assessment” in a framework called VOMA (Virtual Operations Management Assessment).  VOMA is about “institutionalization of technology across six dimensions:”

1. Management Processes
2. Organization
3. Governance
4. Technology
5. People
6. Metrics

via ViewYonder » Poor IT hygiene is a barrier to technology adoption.

The field of players is expanding and CIOs now benefit from more virtualization  infrastructure choices than ever.  Experienced CIOs know, while the technology is important, capitalizing on the benefits of virtualization is more about the people and the process.

I had an earlier post, Stand Up and Get Ready, that was more about manufacturers and resellers being ready for the economy to turn.   I now ask CIOs and IT leaders as a whole….

Are you virtualization ready?  More importantly, are your people and processes ready?

I’ve attended dozens of partner and industry conferences in the past 25 years, and the Cisco Velocity Summit in Paris was by far the best.   The entire event was dedicated to helping channel partners become better marketers and business leaders.

Much like our industry, Velocity was fast paced and packed with valuable information.  The content was delivered by energetic industry experts and provided thought provoking ideas and best practices on how to navigate the economic downturn.  The information presented gave us actionable strategies that can be implemented immediately to accelerate our Cisco business.  I also appreciated how the sessions were made virtual for an audience of partners spanning the entire globe.

Velocity is a great tribute to the commitment Luanne Tierney and the entire Cisco executive team has for the channel and to the professional development of the individuals within the partner community.”

Fellow Cisco Partners…If you’re interested in nominating Velocity for a Channel Insider’s 2009 Bull’s Eye Award visit here.

Hello World from Chris F.

World Wide Technology (WWT) was included as one of the ecosystem partners in Cisco’s Global Ecosystem Partners Smart Grid announcement last week.     Steve Benvenuto—Cisco’s Director of Emerging Technologies and New Markets, does a good job summarizing in his blog post: What You Need to Know About Cisco’s Smart Grid Partner Ecosystem – Channels .

I thought I’d take a moment to tell you about WWT’s participation in this ecosystem but before I begin here’s some background on “The Grid.”

What is a Grid in the First place?  I refer to Wikipedia:

An electrical grid is an interconnected network for delivering electricity from suppliers to consumers.  [A grid] is not a single entity but an aggregate of multiple networks and multiple power generation companies with multiple operators employing varying levels of communication and coordination, most of which is manually controlled.

So what does a Smart Grid do?

A smart grid is the next generation of “the grid” that delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology, hence the interest by many of the major IT players, which leads to energy savings, reduced costs, and  increased reliability.

Not withstanding the positive impact to the environment, the financial savings associated with a Smart Grid could be significant.  An United States Department of Energy study calculated that internal modernization of U.S. grids with smart grid capabilities would save between 46 and 117 billion dollars over the next 20 years.

With that background out of the way, here are some key points as to why WWT is participating in Cisco’s initiative and ecosystem of partners.

First, WWT is one of Cisco’s larger partners and we have specializations, including Master Certifications in many key advanced technologies,  which are critical elements to the underlying Smart Grid infrastructure.  We are absolutely committed to Cisco’s initiative to drive continued IP adoption within the Smart Grid.

WWT already works closely with many of the technology partners in the announcement,  like Aeroscout, Oracle & EMC.  We believe this collaboration among our current partners and Cisco will help us accelerate our collective efforts with Smart Grid.

We have also been on the forefront with Cisco’s Connected Real Estate (CRE) initiative.  I think of CRE as a way to design and construct smart building or homes using digital technology that “plugs into”  the Smart Grid.  We have a brief white paper that we’ll be issuing regarding CRE in the upcoming weeks–stay tuned.

And finally, World Wide is fortunate to have many leading utilities and energy companies as customers including PG&E, Louisville Gas & Electric, WE Energies, Energy Future Holdings and South California Edison.  We’ve learned quite a bit about their networking/IT infrastructure needs and are excited about the prospects of developing technology and infrastructure, with Cisco and other ecosystem partners, that directly and positively impact our many customers’ core business.

To sum it all up, what company wouldn’t want to be part of building the next generation smart communications infrastructure that will help utilities, businesses and consumers better manage and reduce energy consumption?

Feel free to comment or reach out to me or John Rohde, our business development manager responsible for our Energy & Utilities vertical, if you have questions.

I managed to corral three of our senior consulting services engineers, Dave Harrison, Mike Jennings & Kent Noyes, and ask them about the Nexus 1000V.  (All three are CCIEs and Dave/Kent have VCPs to boot.)

Dave, to start, what is the Nexus 1000V?

DAVE: Here’s the product marketing answer from Cisco, which is pretty good.

“The Nexus 1000V switch is a pure software implementation of a Cisco Nexus switch. It resides on a server and integrates with the hypervisor to deliver VN-Link (Cisco VN-Link: Virtualization-Aware Networking) virtual machine-aware network services.”

To boil it all down, the Nexus 1000V gives the network admin visibility and control of the traffic traveling inside the virtual world of VMware.

Bob: Does that mean the network admin didn’t have “visibility and control” before?

Dave: Not necessarily.  Network admins had some visibility and control but with the Nexus 1000V it’s simpler.   Before the Nexus 1000v switch, traffic that was going from VM to VM couldn’t easily be inspected or controlled.  The 1000V implementation makes inspection and control much simpler by allowing the network admin to utilize access lists, QOS, to analyze traffic coming from VMs with a network analyzer, and obtain Netflow information on Virtual Machines within the virtual environment. In a sense, the Nexus 1000v puts the network back in the hands of the network administrator.

Bob: What’s new about the Nexus 1000V for a Network Administrator?

Mike: To Dave’s point, prior to the Nexus 1000V, network admins have been apprehensive of virtualizing the network when asked to support network activity within an ESX cluster of servers.  They didn’t have the same level of visibility and control that they had with physical switches.  With the Nexus 1000V, network admins now have the familiar command line access to port and virtual network switch information just like they have on physical switches.  Basically, the software implementation of the Nexus 1000V provides operations and management consistency with existing physical Cisco Nexus and Catalyst switches.

Bob: Lot’s of functionality for the Network Admin, but what’s in it for the Server Admins?

Kent:  There are a couple of key features related to visibility and manageability.   First, the Server & VMware admins now have GUI access to detailed network port information.  And second, when a VMware admin ties a VMware guest (virtual server) into the Nexus 1000V, a Virtual Ethernet Port is created and associated with that virtual server.  That virtual ethernet port is configurable just like a physical port but then stays with the virtual server even after the server is VMotion’d to another physical server.

Enough on the background.  Let’s get to the Ten things to know about the Nexus 1000V.  Here’s what Dave, Mike and Kent came up with:

1. At the command line, accessible by telnet or SSH, the Nexus 1000 switch feels just like any other Catalyst or Nexus chassis switch you’ve ever configured.  Similarly, it can be managed and monitored via SNMP.  Cisco provides SNMP MIBs to supplement these services.
2. To the Nexus 1000V, participating vSphere servers (or hosts) appear as individual modules much like you would see in a Catalyst 6500 chassis.  You will notice, however, that the module count and the virtual port counts associated with each module can scale up much, much higher than you would see in an isolated physical chassis.
3. The Nexus 1000V was co-developed by Cisco and VMware and can be purchased from either company through resellers.   It’s priced per physical CPU – essentially, based on the total count of CPU’s in each VEM (VSphere host)
4. The Nexus 1000V Virtual Supervisor Module (VMS) plays much the same role in a Nexus 1000V environment as the Supervisor engine in a Nexus 7000 or Catalyst 6500 chassis.  However, the 1000V Supervisor Engine is a Virtual Machine hosted on an ESX server.  And, as is the case of a physical chassis, it can be implemented in a high availability design with a Standby Virtual Supervisor module existing on a separate ESx host
5. When a VMware Administrator ties a VMware guest (virtual server) into the Nexus 1000V, a Virtual Ethernet Port is created and associated with that virtual server.  That virtual ethernet port then stays with the virtual server even after the server is vmotion’d to another physical server, and is configurable just like a physical port
6. When you hear about policies tied to Nexus 1000V virtual interfaces, these policies usually consist of one or more of the following attributes:, VLAN, Port Channels, Private VLAN, ACL, Port Security, Netflow, Rate Limiting, and QoS Marking
7. Network admins are accustomed to creating port channels between network devices.  Now they can create them between Nexus 1000V enabled servers and physical network devices using exactly the same commands, even on the server side
8. Network admins can SPAN and even RSPAN traffic to a network analyzer to troubleshoot network issues down to the specific guest virtual port.  This could be done before on the physical port of the ESX server but at the cost of having to filter this traffic to single out the guest(s) VM’s traffic
9. In the past, server admins were worried about bottlenecks if they gave network admins access within their ESX hosts.  This wasn’t necessarily the case since the network configuration tasks (i.e. VLAN, QoS, etc.) have always been required.  Server admins are now dynamically presented with network configuration information through the single vSphere GUI using the vSphere/Cisco API
10. vSphere vSwitches are local to each host as is the configuration on each switch.  The distributed nature of the Nexus 1000v across all vSphere hosts now allows admins to configure VLAN’s (in addition to some of the newer Nexus 1000v features) once and have them available to all the hosts within vCenter.

That wraps up the 10 Things to Know.  I want to send a sincere thanks to Mike, Ken and Dave. These guys are awfully busy these days working with some of our largest clients on major projects.  Your time and talents are greatly appreciated, thanks again!

(They have been in the middle of a number of Cisco UCS implementations so maybe I can coerce them into a future post: “10 Things you should know about UCS.”)

367 Addison Avenue

Phil McKinney, CTO for HP’s Personal Systems Group, is “passionate about creativity and innovation.”  He hosts the Killer Innovations podcast and has a Twitter feed of on-going killer questions to ask regarding innovation.

Here is an excellent 20 minute presentation that he gave at this Maker Faire.

Phil McKinney @ Maker Faire – Creating Killer Innovations .

Phil starts with “knowledge is a commodity” and then outlines a methodical approach to driving innovation.  I particularly liked his “FIRE” power:

FIRE: Focus, Ideation, Ranking, Execution.

I would suggest that “ideas” are, too,  a commodity.  I’m not suggesting that we stop creating or that everything that could be invented has been invented but with the pervasiveness and commoditization of “knowledge,” ideas are a plenty and it’s only through “execution” that innovation truly occurs.

William Hewlett and David Packard didn’t leave their idea, a variable audio oscillator that was used to test sound quality, in the garage.  Instead, they marketed and sold the first 8 of them to Walt Disney  for work on “Fantasia.”   In fact, they had other ideas too (a foot-foul indicator for bowling and automatic flushers) but William and David focused, prioritized and executed on their oscillator idea and, as a result, built the largest technology company in the world.

It’s worth noting that Phil’s presentation was on creating killer “innovations” and not killer “ideas.”  The point is that innovation is the result of ideas in action.  Or as our CEO, Jim Kavanaugh, reminds the team,”It’s all about execution.”

That’s the Garage where it all began for Hewlett Packard in 1938 and now considered the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley.” Thanks Wikipedia for the non-copyrighted photo.

I took dear ‘young’ Peter
To WWT @ Barnes,
He said he did quite like it
Although he did not tell many yarns.
We were there for some 6 hours
A steady pace we walked,
And got to know one another
As around the lakes we walked.

It may be better later in the year,
Perhaps in autumn; or in spring.
There may better birding for
The elusive Bittern, it may be spied,
Among the reeds at waters edge
Or at North Lake, among the sedge.

When at last we retire, all tired
From a day at WWT Barnes.
We may again stop for tea, or
Ice cream may be to our taste.
This time perhaps, Peter’s will
Taste better than the last.

© Nick Rigazzi-Tarling 19 July 2009

Martin Mere in Lancashire is best known for the varied and exotic birds which visit each year, but a pair of celebrity rodents are causing a stir in the Lancashire reserve. Woody and Twiggy, the Beavers featured on last years’ Autumnwatch with Bill Oddie, have been a huge hit, with a record number of people logging on the Beaver Diary on the Martin Mere website. The pair have even been named as honorary members of Lancashire Vegetarian Society as their fame grows.

After a 500 year absence from Lancashire, the arrival of Woody and Twiggy was a large operation for the reserve. Centre manager, Andrew Wooldridge, explained the decision to bring the beavers to Martin Mere:

‘As you can see we’re based in a man-made mere. What better animals to bring in than natures original mere builders?’

Andrew and his staff faced a number of problems when the beavers arrived in July 2007. Creating an enclosure for two adult beavers is not easy. Beavers need large a large habitat with deep water and enough trees to build with and gnaw. Immediately the beavers began to burrow, creating a larder and several chambers for living. Woody and Twiggy connected the two ponds in the enclosure and felled most of the trees.

Andrew said:

‘We were surprised by the huge amount of trees they went through. They’d use them for building and repairs and we had to supplement them with extra wood. Another problem was the drainage pipes in the enclosure. Beavers naturally try to block up and running water, and an outflow pipe was being stuffed full of mud and branches every night. We had to install a metal cage – a beaver deceiver – to stop them getting near enough to block it.”

The introduction was a huge success. Last year the two beavers produced their first litter. This was a major factor in BBC Autumnwatch choosing Martin Mere as a destination for filming in 2008. The boost in visitors was a huge bonus for the centre, and Marketing Manager Victoria Guigan was delighted with the publicity.

‘It’s always hard to get people through the door, and we rely heavily on volunteers. The successful beaver programme was great for everyone at Martin Mere and helped to boost our profile. It is a credit to the wardens here that they could reproduce the beavers natural habitat so closely that they felt comfortable breeding so soon.’

There was more good news for the centre in December last year, when it was announced that Martin Mere were the first centre in the UK to successfully hand rear a baby beaver. Baby Beaver arrived in the summer, but was only discovered when Woody and Twiggy’s juvenile kitts (the name used for a baby beaver) were being removed from the enclosure and moved to another reserve. Andrew Wooldridge said:

‘It was very lucky. Baby Beaver had several serious injuries from the older beavers. If we hadn’t have found him within 24 hours he would have died.’

There is little knowledge of hand rearing beavers and very few experts. The wardens at Martin Mere adapted techniques used for similar animals and a little trial and error to nurse Baby Beaver back to health. Baby Beaver was introduced to the public in December and the remarkable story of her first few months of life was revealed.

Andrew said:

‘He has been separated from the other beavers and has an enclosure of her own. His back legs are still weak but his scars have healed. He is doing very well.’

Sure enough, Baby Beaver totters around his enclosure, occasionally snuggling up with the stuffed beavers placed with him to keep him company. As he is hand reared, he is not afraid of humans and he seems inquisitive and playful. He is already particularly close to the wardens who take care of him.

Unfortunately Baby Beaver can never be returned to the wild, but there are plans to find a similar aged beaver to keep him company. Eventually, he will be leaving Martin Mere. ‘We haven’t got space for him here, and he can’t go back with Twiggy and Woody. He will be given to another of the Wildlife and Wildfowl Trust sites when he is ready. We’ll miss him when he’s gone though!’ Andrew said. The introduction of the beavers into Martin Mere has been a success. The celebrity couple will not be seen on Autumnwatch next year, but it seems they are still intent on grabbing headlines.

For more information on Baby Beaver, visit the WWT website.

How much is too much?

when we’re not talking about what the client sees?  I was talking with a developer friend at work today and learned that all the software changes and developments are meant to be for the use and benefit of the company.  The software is for us – to make the business run better -  and not on a track to be sold off to customers.

Then we started talking about documentation.  If it was not needed for clients or customers, then why worry about it at all?  Just as the software-in-development will be bringing us into a more efficient operation, proper documentation will be making clear to each other the change, news, and updates of which various levels of the company need to be aware.

The more accurate my communication via documentation or verbal understanding: the better I can facilitate a unified awareness of all the operations that I’m learning to any WWT employee, at any level.

The developers were required to do some of their own documentation, but it was mostly an obligatory procedure thing.  He described the internal documentation as “poorly done.”  I’m more than happy to meld together my inclination to organize and my pleasure at understanding how a new process works.  When conveying these things together, I think that I can continue to develop an essential part of technical communication.

However, my manager brought up a good point the other day when he mentioned that people just don’t want text anymore.  They want visuals.  Text and visuals.  Tom Johnson, in his blog, continually comes back to the idea that technical communicators need to move forward into a  world of blogging, podcasts, videocasts, and social networking applications.

Perhaps, as I learn more about the company, I can find ways to come to a medium that utilizes the two in tandem.

Karen's Office

An unsuspecting inside sales manager will be returning to work on Monday from vacation to be greeted by an aluminum foil wrapped office.

That’s Joe Koenig, our President, getting in on the fun (although he had nothing to do with it!)

2008 Komen Race for the Cure St. Louis

This year marks the 11th Annual Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure. The St. Louis Affiliate of Komen for the Cure is working to better the lives of those facing breast cancer in the local community joining more than 1 million breast cancer survivors and activists around the globe. Through events like the Komen St. Louis Race for the Cure®, the St. Louis Affiliate has invested over $10 million in community breast health programs in 18 counties in Missouri and Illinois.

WWT’s team name, once again, will be “In Memory of Norma.” Norma was a very devoted mother and co-worker, who lost her battle against breast cancer in February, 2003.  During her 4 years with World Wide, Norma will forever be remembered for the memorable impact she had on us all – employees and customers. When you entered the building and Norma was at the front desk, she always greeted you with a warm smile and kind words. Her high spirits and positive attitude made you feel energized. She was an extraordinary person and we all miss her dearly.

Thanks to our employee’s and everyone in the St. Louis community who participated in Saturday’s event.

Watching my son’s lacrosse games from the sidelines,  I often heard “Stand up and get ready” shouted from the coaches to the boys on the bench.

The coaches wanted the boys to be prepared for when they were called to action.  Last week in Boston, if I listened closely (that was my area of improvement, by the way, during Marshall Goldsmith’s speech)  that’s what I heard from John Chambers as the final speaker at the Cisco Partner Summit.

I first have to say that John is a tremendous speaker and it would be great to have his ability to speak off the cuff for an hour.  He had a number of points about Cisco’s architectural drives, the industry, the economy and even Cisco’s competition.   Underlying it all, I heard John telling his valued army of resellers to “stand up and get ready.”  The economy will turn  (John thinks the end of this year) and we will all emerge  stronger & better when it does.

We are listening, John.  We’re investing in several key areas, data center, virtualization, professional services so that we’re ready when the economy makes the turn and customers increase spending.    Jim Kavanaugh, our CEO, views “getting ready” as a series of steps over these past several years: invest (innovation), execute (operational excellence) and breakaway.

So, coach, we’re standing up and ready.  In fact, we’re already very much in the game.

There are many different ways to watch birds; in the garden, a WWT or an RSGB Centre. I have been a member of both organisations for a couple of years but I have been to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre at Barnes in London the most, as I live nearby.

There are many places around the British Isles where you can go to watch birds, 9 WWT Centres, 200 reserves of the RSPB, gravel pits, industrial areas and the coast, also a whole raft of countryside places where birds can be watched.

The London Wetlands Centre was formed from a 42 hectare redundant sewerage farm which cleaned the dirty water of West London. It started its life in 1989 when the construction began on this old, out of date, water treatment plant. The project was given the go-ahead and was told that no spoil was allowed on or off the site, other than basic building materials. Indeed one pile of spoil was moved three times before a WW2 unexploded bomb was found within it. The site finally opened in May 2000.

Many would think that, being so close to London, this would disturb the many wild fowl and birds that rest here as they pass through on the way to their breeding grounds, as an added hazard there is a major flight path into Heathrow Airport overhead.

My day at Barnes WWT this month started about mid-day and showing my membership card, received my get out of car park token and in I went. I asked the receptionist how many customers had visited up to mid-day, I was told 824 and this would rise to about 1200 at closing time, mind you this was the Easter holidays.

I decided to go to the World Wetlands area first. This area contains ducks, geese and swans from around the world, including the endangered Laysan Teal and noisy White-faced Whistling ducks, there are also Icelandic Geese, Mandarin Duck and Demoiselle Cranes, among others. The World Wetlands Area contains two observation hides where you can look over some of this vast site and observe some of the regular visitors such as Cormorants, Swans, Shoveler Duck, Ruddy Duck and Canada Geese plus numerous other birds and wild fowl through the year. In fact this is where I saw my first Water Rail. This area of WWT is a great place to take the kids to check out the wild fowl up close and see the differences of various species and hear some of the strange noises that they make.

After walking through this fascinating area for about an hour, I decided to go through to the Main Lake which is the wild area of the site. Here we pass four observation hides where we can look over the vast area of water.

I normally walk around the main lake and past the smaller lake to get to the largest of hides called The Peacock Tower. This observation point has two levels which command the best of views over the site. Before getting there I sit on a seat at a far corner with the Thames passing, not 25 meters away, over an area of wooded and rough ground.

I sit and listen to the cacophony of sounds which attack my ears, not forgetting that this is the start of main bird watching season, I first hear the noisy Rooks in the tops of the trees with Wood Pigeon cooing. The occasional Ring-necked Parakeet flies by and squawks with that unmistakable paradise island sound, they usually fly in groups but there are only one or two here today. The friendly Robins are noisy and perch in the bushes nearby, straining my eyes to see them; they suddenly come into view and give their melodious song at full volume.

This is the time of year that my favourite birds, the Long-tailed Tits, come to Barnes. They flit through the bushes, coming closer as they pass by; uttering their loud trisyllabic, sharp ‘srih-srih-srih’ and slightly explosive rippling calls ‘zerrrr’. This is my favourite bird this time of year, apart from the ever loved all year round Robin. Other sounds heard among the Great and Blue Tits and the honk of over flying Canadian Geese that day were the background sounds of London, the river, over-flying helicopters and aircraft.

There have been some first-time visitors here in the past couple of years, namely Avocet, Bittern and Oyster Catcher. All these are now regulars here and have been welcomed by all.

This Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Barnes is such a large site that it takes many days to see everything, not least the birds. Children are most welcome as there are many activities for them to enjoy and do.

Do try to visit a centre near to where you live or check them out if you are visiting an area close by. You will not regret it. There will be some areas that you will be close enough to see the birdlife, on some centres you will be able to hire binoculars.

DAY 1.5

…is a 0.5 day because really all I did on this day was visit the London Wetland Centre. I wanted to combine it with a trip to one of my Day 2 spots, but discovered that said Day 2 spot was closed on Mondays, which was really irritating.

The London Wetland Centre is located in Barnes, a short bus ride away from Hammersmith bus station. It’s not difficult to find, but unless you’re interested in wetlands, wetlands wildlife or birds, it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would actually make the effort to come all the way out here.

(Yes! Good camera photos are back! W00t.)

The centre is part of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), a conservation society founded in 1946 by naturalist and artist Sir Peter Scott. It occupies 42 hectares of land converted from small reservoirs into wetlands habitats suitable for wildlife, which is really pretty nifty. It was recognised as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 2002 and is home to nationally significant numbers of some bird populations (gadwall and shoveler ducks) as well as a variety of rare and endangered wetland species including a colony of water voles. There have also been seasonal sighitngs of wild birds such as the peregrine falcon.

Sir Peter Scott, founder of WWT

Riportiamo un interessante e incredibile avvistamento Ufo documentato dal Mufon il 17 Marzo 2009 attraverso il Worldwide Telescope e Google Sky,software che consentono l’ esplorazione dello spazio con pochi click , tra i 12 terabytes di dati e piu’ a disposizione,facendoci navigare tra le immagini ad alta definizione riprese dal Telescopio Hubble, il Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center e lo Spitzer Space Telescope dove è possibile visitare le più remote e vaste zone dell’universo,tra i pianeti e le stelle, scoprendo con sorpresa come in questo caso, dei misteriosi oggetti volanti di forma sigariforme mentre stazionano tra Venere e la Costellazione dei Pesci;in totale contiamo ben 12 oggetti sconosciuti e non catalogabili tra quelli celesti.Di seguito i video ai quali ci riferiamo con i relativi avvistamenti: