Swallow

The swallows and martins are a group of passerine birds in the family Hirundinidae that are characterised by their adaptation to aerial feeding. Swallow is used colloquially in Europe as a synonym for the barn swallow.

This family comprises two subfamilies: Pseudochelidoninae (the river martins of the genus Pseudochelidon) and Hirundininae (all other swallows and martins). Within the Old World, the name "martin" tends to be used for the squarer-tailed species, and the name "swallow" for the more fork-tailed species; however, there is no scientific distinction between these two groups. Within the New World, "martin" is reserved for members of the genus Progne. (These two systems are responsible for the sand martin being called "bank swallow" in the New World.) The entire family contains around 83 species in 19 genera.

The swallows have a cosmopolitan distribution across the world and breed on all the continents except Antarctica. It is believed that this family originated in Africa as hole-nesters; Africa still has the greatest diversity of species. They also occur on a number of oceanic islands. A number of European and North American species are long-distance migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are non-migratory.

Bird

Birds (class Aves) are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at approximately ten thousand, with more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds.

The fossil record indicates that birds are the last surviving dinosaurs, having evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, and the last common ancestor is estimated to have lived about 95 million years ago. DNA-based evidence finds that birds radiated extensively around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs. Birds in South America survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world via multiple land bridges while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like "stem-birds" that lie outside class Aves proper, in the group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period. Many of these early stem-birds, such as Archaeopteryx, were not yet capable of fully powered flight, and many retained primitive characteristics like toothy jaws in place of beaks and long bony tails.

Birds (Marius Neset album)

Birds (released March 25, 2013 in Oslo, Norway by the label Edition Records – EDN1040) is the 4'th album of the Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset.

Critical reception

The review by Neil Spencer of the British newspaper The Guardian awarded the album 5 stars, the review by Terje Mosnes of the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet awarded the album dice 6, the review by Carl Petter Opsahk of the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang awarded the album dice 5, and the reviewer Ian Mann of the Jazz Mann awarded the album 4.5 stars

According to Mosnes, with this album, Neset takes further steps on his way to the Jazz sky. The brilliant compositions and the musical skills of this band are extraordinary. It is only to look forward to the next move of this great jazz musician and composer.

NRK Jazz critique Erling Wicklund, in his review of Neset's album Birds states:

BBC Music critique Peter Marsh, in his review of Neset's album Birds states:

Track listing

Personnel

Rooster (zodiac)

The Rooster (simplified Chinese: 鸡; traditional Chinese: 雞/鷄) is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Rooster is represented by the Earthly Branch character 酉. The name is also translated into English as Cock or Chicken.

Years and the Five Elements

People born within these date ranges can be said to have been born in the "Year of the Rooster", while also bearing the following elemental sign:

Basic astrology elements

See also

References

Guardians of Ga'Hoole

Guardians of Ga’Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic. The series, which was intended to end in 2008 with the publication of The War of the Ember until a prequel The Rise of a Legend was published in 2013, has a total of sixteen books. Apart from the main series there are a few more books and spin offs set in the same universe. The first three books of the series were adapted into the animated 3D film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, directed by Zack Snyder.

Story

This series follows the adventures of Soren, a young barn owl, for the first six books, but follows Nyroc, Soren's nephew, later renamed Coryn, for books seven through eight, and twelve through fifteen. Books nine through eleven are half-prequels to the other books, following Hoole, the first king of the Ga'Hoole Tree.

Martín (hache)

Martín (hache) is a 1997 Spanish and Argentine film directed by Adolfo Aristarain and starring Federico Luppi, Juan Diego Botto, Cecilia Roth and Eusebio Poncela.

It was nominated for four Goya Awards in 1998, and Cecilia Roth won one for lead actress.

It was filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Madrid, and Almería, Spain.

Plot summary

Martín, known as Hache, is a 19-year-old Argentinian boy who after his girlfriend leaves him has a nearly fatal drug overdose, thought by many to be an attempted suicide. Afterwards, his mother sends him to Madrid to live with his father, Martin.

Martin, a successful film-maker, doesn't want to take care of his son because he likes living alone and being able to socialize with his two friends, Alicia and Dante, without influencing his son in any negative way since both Alicia and Dante are experienced drug users. Regardless, he brings him into his home, hoping to ward off any evil influences that might cause his son to have a relapse and commit suicide.

Martin Maryland

The Martin Model 167 was an American-designed light bomber that first flew in 1939. It saw action in World War II with France and the United Kingdom, where it was called the Maryland.

Design and development

In response to a U.S. Army Air Corps light bomber requirement issued in 1938, the Glenn L. Martin Company produced their Model 167, which was given the official designation XA-22. Martin's design was a twin-engine fully metallic monoplane, capable of around 310 mph (500 km/h) and carrying a crew of three. The bombardier sat in the nose below the cockpit, and self-defense was provided by a mid-upper twin-machine gun turret, as well as four forward firing light machine guns in the wings.

The XA-22 was not adopted for operational service in the U.S., as the contract was won by Douglas with its DB-7, but Martin received foreign orders, and about 450 of these relatively fast, twin-engined bombers were built.

The prototype Model 167W was powered by twin-row Pratt & Whitney R-1830-37 “Twin Wasp” engines, which were replaced in French production aircraft by single-row Wright “Cyclone 9” engines (the Twin Wasps were then restored for the British Maryland). All versions of the Model 167 were armed with six machine guns, four fixed guns in the wings (mainly for ground attack), one dorsal gun and one ventral gun. In the prototype these guns were all 0.30 in Browning machine guns. The dorsal gun was mounted in a fully retractable turret. The French aircraft used license built Belgian Fabrique Nationale FN-Brownings, and used a lighter semi-retractable dorsal turret. The weight saved helped to increase the top speed to 288 mph.