We can think about negative evidence in all sorts of different ways. Very often we emphasize the positives when actually there's a whole series of negatives as it were. We think about the room of error and forget to mention that we didn't find an iron age settlement or an energy settlement or a saxet or whatever it is. We focus on the positives we forget about the negatives very often, although in terrain modeling and in site modeling, such as we see here, we do very often use those residues as inverse residues in order to calculate the probabilities based on our positive evidence. I've just cited two things from what Roger mentioned earlier on. One is the conceptual notion of negative evidence and the other is the question of confidence and just say one or two things about them. The first thing we need to emphasize is that negative and positive are not a binary issue. There's greater complexity to it than simply binary. If we think of positive and negative, we often think of them as binary catapults. But actually what we're doing in archaeology has an empirical science. It means that actually we've got a matrix with four boxes in it rather than simply two. Because over here we've got true and over here we've got false. This is also the case in many other disciplines of course. Simple when you know what you're talking about. You have to come back and switch it on and on. We've got positive and negative and we've got true and false. The problem with a lot of archaeological work as it is in many other disciplines as well is determining which of these four boxes we are in. It's very often the case that we have a false negative in archaeological work. For example Geo-Psychological Survey which doesn't seem to reveal anything when actually there is a lot of stuff there. What we're aiming for of course is to be in these two boxes at the top. Studies have been done on this and archaeology doesn't come out too badly. Compare for example with areas of medicine like antiseptic protection and so on which follow the same basic rules. What we're interested in of course is developing if you like techniques and technologies which move these in this direction and these in this direction. In order to, as it were, heighten what's actually going on and develop our numbers a little bit more. Always therefore we've got to think what is the number that we're using here and how can we relate it to a more matrix based approach to thinking about positive and negatives. What that leads us onto though is to think about confidence and the notion of the confidence they get with it. And as Roger mentioned earlier on a lot of this is very often about the use of different kinds of techniques. Choosing them appropriately either sequentially or in parallel to develop approaches which allow us to be more confident in knowing where we are in this box. And particularly in getting true positives and true negatives out at the end. So as we increase the number of techniques for example and we could put it on the bottom here and we might expect that confidence increases somewhere down here in this general direction there. It's not over a linear arrangement and the selection of techniques becomes very important particularly if you nest those techniques or create them in a sequential way. So that your confidence may actually stay low down here that starts to step up as you increase the techniques. And you can easily think of it in terms of for example a doctor doing an analysis if you walk into a surgery with some sort of ailment and the doctor immediately starts to diagnose what's wrong with you. And there's simple techniques at first, patting your back and using the stethoscope and asking you to cough and looking in your eyes. These are very simple techniques. It's field walking, it's your visit which is the sort of things that we might do in our therapy. Eventually when they can't find out what's wrong with you and stick you inside an MRI scanner then we're talking about some really heavy weight science to find out. And this is what we're talking about in ideology when we start doing some really intensive work to reduce the risk that we're into the false negatives. That's the real difference. So we can think about it in these kind of terms. But then there's more complexity as Rodney noted earlier on. Scale becomes importance. And a concept that Marty Talbot about a few years ago was the concept of legibility which is quite an interesting idea. It involves scale but also the ease with which we can recognize archaeological patterns and archaeological features. So if we continue to have confidence on this scale on legibility as we're on this scale then we can think about how development might allow us to develop a confidence rating as legibility changes and as legibility increases. The important point behind all this though is the point that Roger made at the end of things. It's very bad at articulating the way that we work with our data in terms of telling the audience or the reader what it is we've actually done and what confidence we have as the person who's done it in the results that we're presenting. Have we done these sort of analysis? Are we confident that it's a true positive or a true negative? Or are we just hedging our bets as it were in the background to think about some of this stuff? The articulation of the confidence we have in our own approaches is just as important for positive as it is for negative evidence. Now in that sense positive and negative evidence become part of a continuum of understanding social spaces and things that we're talking about in the papers today in a way that perhaps allows us to be much more nuanced about understanding the archaeological record. So those are just a couple of things which I hope stand on some of the things that Roger introduced us to this morning first thing but we didn't have much time to develop and elaborate back then. But it brings us I hope more or less back on schedule as it were to move forward with the programme.


In this talk, I use the word poit as a figure for the writer as literary artist. And the word poem or poetry as the generic term for all literary works. I also distinguish between communication and expression. In communication, one conveys what one thinks and feels at the moment of speech with other speakers. In expression, one shapes the language to one's own perception or intuition about some aspect or feature of reality, whether that reality has actually been lived or has only been imagined. Literature or imaginative writing is the field of expression. Its subject or theme is our humanity, our experience as human. Literature itself, like history, culture and language, is always in flux. What we usually call fiction, poem, play, or creative non-fiction or essay are only possible forms of expression shaped or wrought from a given historical language. If so, those forms already secrete the rules and criteria of their possibility. The writer as literary artist is always in quest of other forms of expression. The imagination has infinite possibilities. Whatever kind or type a literary work is, it enacts what we are as human beings. But in our individual and in our common history, we have become and may be becoming. A symbolic or imaginative enactment literary works are reinventions of the imagination. We ourselves create the meanings that help us live. We have then, on the one hand, what we call our world, our reality, nature, people and their affairs. And on the other hand, language. The human being alone, it seems, is conscious of death. And so he has a great yearning for this world, this life. He longs for the world and the living to be the meaningful word incarnate. This impels him to translate, to carry the world over to language, to ferry, of course, the words of the language, the wonder of nature, the miracle of living. It is no accident we speak of language as a tongue. The figure suggests that we would savor, with words and words, the joy of living to the full. Any language, in fact, is by itself already translation. From Latin, trans, ferry, to carry across. Any language is a way of perceiving in a given culture during a given historical period. Writing also is essentially translation. We ferry across our words whether they are indigenous or adopted, those thoughts and feelings we have not then found their expression. Or which need again to be expressed in a new form, that they perhaps may still live after our living. What is expressed through words and the images or myths that they are made to evoke is an insight into our humanity. That insight is the luminance of thought which no concept or idea conveys. A regions of feeling which no thought catches. If this is so, then language is our first fiction. And it's working. It's being wrought into poem or story a second by which our humanity is, as it were, again created. Fiction, I said, but no less real. Because it is the imagination which makes real to the mind what it abstracts from our experience. As teachers of English, we want to privilege Filipino literature wrought from English as models of good writing. Precisely because, one, the culture and experience from which these poems arise are our own history as a people. And two, these poems show how English as a medium of expression operates to shape our own thoughts and feelings as Filipinos. In a way of the imagination, our poets have cleared a clearing of our own within that adopted language called English. Even as in our literary history, our writers have done so with Spanish. It may be remarked that the Filipino experience can be expressed only in Filipino. That is to say in Tagalog, Sibuanon, Ilocco, Hiligaynon. But that is to misconceive language. Language shapes the things that it expresses. Language is, as a given historical medium or cultural artifact, language itself is already a fixed way of looking at reality. Therefore, creating a version of that reality. Of course, as the speakers and the readers outlook changes, language also changes. Be it English or Tagalog, language is always already a partial representation of reality. An interpretation of the world and human affairs shared by the community of the language's speakers. But the poet, like most everyone, sees things through his own sensibility and imagination. However, his own self might also have been shaped by changes in his own time and culture. He may see things differently from the way of looking that inheres in the language he employs. In that case, he must work the language to make it express his own seeing and feeling. The workshop approach in creative writing may be one effective way of teaching English through models of excellent writing by Filipino writers. Here, the students are encouraged to express themselves imaginatively by probing their own experiences and exploring the resources and experimenting with the possibilities of English as a linguistic medium. This workshop approach assumes that the very act of writing itself re-creates the language. The teacher, therefore, must show how this takes place. He takes as a working hypothesis and interpretation an end or goal that the writer has set out to accomplish. So he asks, what is the poem about? That is to say, it's paksa, subject or theme. What is the poem's point or insight? It's saysay, meaning, significance. Next, he asks about the poem's final end or goal. Did the poem succeed in enforcing that theme, in expressing that insight? The story or poem itself shows how the language has been employed and deployed to achieve its effect on the sensitive reader. That effect we call the thing. The poem has arrived. The intellectual or emotional force or energy of the poem by which the poem's end is achieved. The teacher's purpose here is to make the student aware of linguistic and rhetorical resources under unlimited possibilities and, therefore, enhance the student's sense for language. This sense for language is the basic poetic sense which is nourished by the love of reading and is the foundation of proficiency in any language. The workshop approach requires close analytical reading of the literary text to open it. For as you read, you are not a passive consumer of a product. You are an active producer of meaning. So, later imaginatively, the human experience that the poem depicts. In the poem's world, you are engaged with a way of thinking and feeling. You see and feel the way the poem's speaker or the characters in the story see and feel so that at the end, when you make an assessment, about the literary or poem's imagined experience, you have first lived, as it were, another life. You have first considered the other imaginary person's viewpoint before you favor, as it may happen, your own interpretation. By cultivating this sensitivity as one reads, one can begin to appreciate what the writer has accomplished, all that he has done with the sole means of language. Let us take two points by Edith L. Ciampo. Lament for the littlest fellow and the poem Bonsai. Lament for the littlest fellow. The littlest fellow was a marmoset. He held the bars and blinked his old man's eyes. You said he knew us and took my arm and set my fingers round the bars with coaxing mimicry of squeak and twitter. Now he thinks you are another marmoset in a cage. The proud denial set you to laughing, shutting back a question far into my mind, something enormous and final. The question was unasked, but there is an answer. Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow, I would catch our own little true and unaware. And from our pain and the dark room of our rage, but I would snatch him back from yesterday and tomorrow. You wake and I bruise my hands on the living cage. That was in 1950 from Sans and Carl. Now the next poem, Bonsai. All that I love, I fold over once and once again and keep in a box or a slit in a hollow pose or in my shoe. All that I love, why yes, but for the moment and for all time, both. Something that folds and keeps easy. Sans note or dad's one goditai, a roto picture of a young queen, even a money bill. It's utter sublimation. A feat, this heart's control, moment to moment to scale all love down to a cup hands size till seashells are broken pieces from God's own bright teeth and life and love are real, things you can run and breathless hand over to the nearest child. That was in 1972 in Focus Magazine. Now, in the first poem, what the question is and what exactly the answer to it, both something enormous and final, we would have to infer both from the imagery and the metaphor that subtly limb or delineate the human situation. The soul metaphor is the marmoset in a cage, a monkey, a monkey whose name etymologically suggests a grotesque mumbling figure. When the husband mocks his wife, as resembling a marmoset which she proudly denies, the resemblance had already been subtly fixed by her own perception of the marmoset as the littlest fellow with his old man's eyes, with smart the animal as human. The husband taunts his wife as the resemblance by setting her fingers round the bars as to simulate a prison cell for her and mimicking all the while a marmoset's squeak and twitter. All male banter or monkey business for a moment's merriment, but it provokes in the wife a realization instantly suppressed because it is dark, something enormous and final. For nights afterwards, whenever the wife would catch the image, marmoset, in her husband's sleeping face, she would only call it our own little truan as though to make light of it. Since in that past moment of truancy and banter in the zoo, she had repressed a dark intuition. The image had fled from our pain in the dark room of our rage. In the poins human situation, bedroom, a site of intimacy has become a variation upon cage and yet she would snatch him back, marmoset, from yesterday and tomorrow because the image held the truth. You wake and I bruise my hands on the living cage. At the poins and we might also ask, why in the title of the poem, why lament for? Is it because the truth is constantly denied so that its enormity, the living cage, might be lightened? But lightened indeed, it is in a later poem, a later moment of enlightenment where the image of the poem's inside appears only in the poem's title, bonsai, where of course assuming that the speaker in lament and the speaker in bonsai is the same, why? The poem bonsai is, as it were, a free form because that moment where all love is gathered is all time. In fact, it isn't so much image of bonsai as idea and feeling which the poem's words enforce. Box or slit in a hollow post or shoe, it isn't the image such as the marmoset in its cage which motivates or propels the poem but rather the idea of souvenir or memento by which one cherishes and nurtures life and love as real, as real as any material thing like a blue engine shawl. This calls to mind Eduardo Galliano's Wander's epigraph to his Book of Embraces in 1989. Recordar, he says, to remember from Latin, re-cordis to pass through the heart. So, be it son's note or dad's one godi thai or even the most ordinary thing like a money bill, the revelation or insight about those mementos is the poem and it would be the highest art to state it quite simply without any rhetoric of irony and ambiguity so cherished in the new critical mode. It's utter sublimation, a feat, this heart's control moment to moment to scale all love down to a cup hand size. Yet, the irony and the paradox are there in the very aptness of the words scale and cup hand so carefully chosen so that life and love as real things appear all the more magnificent. Till seashells are broken pieces says the poet from God's own bright peace. Ah, this for me is the most remarkable feat in the poems making. It is the poet had said for the moment and for all time, both this keeping of mementos, folding over and scaling down to keep easy and cherished so then, till seashells encompasses all time and by invoking God suggest a divinity in that simple yet mysterious affection which sustains life and love as real. The image of seashells glinting on a sunny beach evokes brightness and cheer and so fulfills what the poet speaks of as heart's control. Ah, but there is more. Seashells are broken pieces like souvenirs that is to say they are broken off as it were from those happy moments where life and love are real. Then indeed for souvenirs are deeply cherished there are things there are things that are very light so that you can run and breathless hand over to the mirror's child. That truly is the very sign that it is real for a child needs further proof of love than love. Ya, okay. Thank you.


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This is Helen Radio and you're listening to Around the Northwest this Monday afternoon and I'm delighted that Ingus Kennedy from Nature Northwest has joined us now in studio. Ingus, good afternoon and happy new year to you. Happy new year John, lovely day although chilly day and it's slippy out there so be careful anybody who's out and about in the roads or even on the paths just came in one of the back roads and it's still very slippy. When we get harsh weather like this our attentions turn to the small wildlife I suppose in particular birds and we realise they can't get at their food because everything is frozen over so it's a good time to leave out a few e-scraps for the birds. Yeah, really important thing to do if you can and birds like so much of our wildlife where they really suffer is from habitat loss and for years and years we've been chipping away at all of their natural habitats to suit our own needs but we can replace that to a certain extent by looking after our hedgerows by looking after our wild patches in our gardens and we can help by feeding the birds and if you feed the birds study after study has shown that the birds they tend to hang around in the garden they tend to eat your pests when the spring flowers and crops start to come and of course they're very beautiful you know. I feed peanuts and that will get the various different the blue tits the great tits the cold tits that kind of thing get the chaff inches as well but I also get the little sunflower seeds now they're a bit more expensive but it's worth buying a small bag of them because you'll get the gold finches and when the gold finches arrive they're beautiful red faces and they're golden yellow wings they're a stunning thing to have in your garden. And it gives you a chance I suppose to take a closer look at the birds and just to enjoy them when you have a feeder out. Yeah definitely and if you're thinking about getting a feeder and you can get these things a big industry now the bird feeding industry the bird feeders the bird food itself and you can get them all over the place but try and put them up somewhere where there's a little bit of shelter nearby because they like to have a little bush or a tree that they can jump in and out of so they'll feel safe there from the cat from the sparrow hawk but try and put them by somewhere where you can see them by the kitchen window by the sitting room window so you can sit and enjoy them and you'll get used to it there's only a few species really there's only about a dozen species that regularly come to your bird feeder so you can get to learn them fairly quickly. Okay, speaking of birds there's an online guide and this is aimed at children and it's really good in that it's well for a start you know when it was children you don't want it too long secondly you do want it fairly informative and the third thing is you want plenty of pictures and it ticks all these boxes. It does, yeah this was something that the Glen Bay National Park team education team I created a few years ago they created a few different books but one of them was a Guide to Birds of Inch Wildfowl Reserve now I don't know if there's many of the hard copies left anymore although you could ask them of course next time you're in Glen Bay but you can get it online and you can download it or you can just browse through the PDF online and it's free and it's a wonderful thing it's beautifully illustrated by a artist called Aideen who's based down in Galway and it's aimed at children but the information covers everything and it's very accessible, very easy to read so it's a lovely easy way to get in and try and figure out start figuring out some of the winter birds that have come to visit us. And it's a great introduction as well to Inch Wildfowl Reserve if you're not familiar with it and it gives you an insight into you know a bit of the background, a bit of what's you know what's ongoing down there and then the birds themselves that come there Yeah, Inch I think is a fascinating place really because of course it's all reclaimed land so over a hundred years ago that land, the waters the swillie would have flown freely around Inch Island whereas now all of that flat plain which you see when you're driving towards Derry and you're passing Bert and the Green On Hotel and what's not all of that land to your left Down left, yeah Yeah, that's all reclaimed and it's an amazing feat what they did engineering well over a hundred years ago and now that's farmed but they also right beside it have an amazing Wildfowl Reserve and it's a great argument or discussion for how we can have farming we can also have nature at the same time if people work together and if people work with the National Parks Wildlife Service and if they look after the kind of birds and just leave room for the birds, you know Yeah If you've got a question by the way that you'd like me to put to Angus get in touch, you're at 60, 25,000 by text message or on WhatsApp and just to remind our listeners where they can access that guide Yeah, so I googled it this morning just to check and I put in Inch Birds Book and I put as simple as that those three words Inch Bird Book and up comes the free PDF so you'll be able to get it there and what we'll do is after this session we'll pop it into the comments section on the Facebook page as well Okay, okay, perfect Yeah, link into it Now, staying briefly with birds I see there's a new study by Birdwatch Ireland and it's found that the number of water birds that winter here in Ireland has actually dropped by 15% over the past five years that seems like a lot in five years It's an awful lot in five years and it's a very worrying thing really because a lot of these birds even though some of them might be invisible to a lot of the public because they'll go into the muddier places in the estuaries and quite often a lot of them only visit us here in the wintertime their numbers are going down and down and remember these birds have been coming to our shores for thousands and thousands of years before we were here before we started changing our shores and draining our lands and manipulation of the foreshore I mean, we're chatting about a lot of birds that come to places like Inch but right the way around to our wetlands and wet lakes and other wet areas Absolutely, so Lox Willey and Lockfoil just across the Hillsmouth are very important bird sites they're internationally important bird sites for the amount of birds that they hold particularly winter birds but all over the place any bay that any estuary in Donegal will hold a good number of birds this time of year and then around the fields around the estuaries and around the bays a lot of the birds will go to feed during the daytime so you'll get some of the bigger geese there and you'll get some of the bigger waders the ones of the big long beaks that will go there as well and they're all relying on us to provide a bit of a habitat so that they can survive for the wintertime and again back to that point of they were doing this before we arrived so surely it's incumbent on us to make sure that we leave space for these birds so that they can go back to the breeding grounds in safety Absolutely and it's not just about birds but other wildlife as well and what do they feed on? They come here and they like us at certain times of the year but what do most of them feed on? So there's a huge variety of types of birds but one of the lessons I do in schools on a regular basis is I bring in various different stuffed birds that I have and I show them the different kind of beaks and you can tell a lot about a bird by its beak so if you look at the birds on your garden feeder the birds like the robin and the wren with the little tiny, tiny, fine little pointy beak it's like little tweezers and it's looking for tiny bugs or tiny seeds whereas the big chunky beak on say the chaff inch or the goldfinch is better for cracking nuts and you can tell a bit the same for a lot of the water birds so the ducks, some of the ducks are looking for weeds different kind of plants growing just underneath the water and some of them are looking for little mollocks little animals that are under the water whereas the waders they're the ones that quite literally wade through muddy water and they've got the long, long beaks and you'll see their beaks probing down and they're amazing creatures really so if you think of the curlew with its beak which is about 15 centimetres long it's huge with a slight curve on it and it has as much nerve endings in its finger or in the tip of its beak as we do in our fingertips so they're amazingly sensitive they can probe, probe down quite deep into the mud and then pull out the little ragworms and things like that Right Why are there, I mean you mentioned earlier there about us providing the right habitat for them and places for them to feed and come to but is that really the main reason why the numbers are down so much? It's one of the big reasons and like any of these things like the corn creak when it heads off to Africa in the winter we can't control what happens when it goes elsewhere and climate change of course is having an effect on everything it's having an effect on us it's having an effect on the birds and all of nature so that affects birds whether they come here for the summer or whether they come here for the winter but the way that we look after the habitats that's the big thing for the birds here the disturbance that we have on the habitats people going down exploring more getting out and looking at these wild places more which is a wonderful thing to do but the more you do that the more you disturb in the birds and if you bring a dog along with you and you'll see if you go to Inch Wildfell Reserve dogs are allowed there but people are asked to respect the rules keep their dog on the lead because even the presence of a dog just running around it might not touch the birds might not catch the birds and your dog isn't trying to do them any harm most likely but it's enough to push them on push them on and you think of some of those birds you think of the little sandalings for instance I was up at Killahoe Beach yesterday the beautiful Killahoe Beach near Dunfanahee and there's these tiny little birds called sandalings they're kind of white and grey and they've got a black black little beak and they run along the edge of the beach and anybody who walks out any of our beaches will be familiar with them in the winter and a tiny little fella the size of a black bird and they run in and out with the waves and the waves will disturb these tiny little shellfish that we don't even notice they're picking away with us those birds have come from Siberia so they've come all the way from Siberia to our shores in Donegal and then we let our dog off and the dog chases them up and down we think this is great because we see the dog interacting with the birds but what the dog is doing is putting those birds under pressure and it's depleting their little energy reserve that they have because that same bird when we're tucked up tonight and when your dog is tucked up nice and cosy tonight it has to try and survive those freezing temperatures so we need to be mindful when we're out and about interacting in these places and then on the greater scale of things we need to start protecting their habitats as well I was thinking the exact same thing actually over the weekend because we went for a walk not far from where you were we were at Lergo Braque the so-called secret beach and on the way over you sort of go where you want there's no clearly defined path and I'm thinking now we didn't have the dog with us but I'm thinking you know if we go that way and somebody else goes that way and somebody else goes the other way you know the chances are we're going to be disturbing something or other instead of having you know clearly defined path over and another one back or something to that effect or maybe one for over and back and you know and it all adds up it does all add up and people don't really see the impact particularly with the dogs that they do because the dog is gone and the dog comes back quite happy and they don't really notice what's been happening that area is very interesting that area around Hornhead there's a program called the life on maher program and if you're interested in conservation or nature preservation look up life on maher and they've only really started they employed some people last year they've got a great team of people in Donegal they're also based down in Mayo and they're working with local farmers local landowners to try and preserve some of that fantastic and unique habitat which shelters birds in the winter and shelters a certain amount of animals in the winter but also looks after a huge amount of birds in the summertime as well and you'll have them very close to where you are and I'm not an advocate of keeping dogs on the lead all the time but I suppose we have to be mindful of you know wildlife and other people as well but it's just a pity that there weren't more places where we could comfortably let dogs off the lead and that's been... Well I think that's a conversation we should be starting to have with the council and with ourselves more because the dog ownership has increased from it was a bit over 400,000 before Covid and now it's estimated at over 800,000 800,000 bird dogs so the amount of dogs in the country have doubled and that's the ones that are registered so that's the responsible dog owners and of course people love their dogs and need places the dogs need places to exercise but we also love our nature and we need to be able to find space for both so in the meantime keep your dogs on the lead and just be aware of where you are and then we'll get to enjoy the nature all the more Speaking of keeping dogs on the lead there was an incident last week and it was just one that was highlighted it happens all the time where there was a seal that came up on a beach and people were being advised just leave it alone don't approach it and just give it some space what should we do when we see a seal like that? Resist temptation that's what we should do and I fully understand the urge if you see a seal and typically if you see a seal on the beach at this time of year it's most likely going to be a pup the adults will haul out seals are incredible creatures again you think of the cold of the water at the moment and seals spend about half of their life in the water hunting hunting hunting but crucially they need to spend the other half hauled out so that the oxygen come all the way back through the blubber all the way back through their blood and they can warm up enough and the adult ones will tend to haul out in places where we can't get to or we don't get to as much because they're wise to us whereas the young ones the grey seals which are bigger of the two species that we have around the coast around the grey seals they give birth to their young from between August and January so typically October and November is when it peaks and it's an amazing thing really the mum feeds these young pups with the richest milk in the world some of the fattiest milk in the world fix and then just heads off starts breeding again and goes off to the business and that pup needs to figure out its own way to be able to needs to learn how to swim needs to learn how to hunt survive with the winter just setting in in Ireland so often times they'll haul up in beaches at this time of year just having a rest there's probably nothing wrong with them and the temptation is to go up and have a look and try and get a good photo or your dog might be taking a snap at them or whatever stay away from it leave it alone don't disturb it like all wildlife if you can in general they're curious and then we're curious and they can lead to problems again just going back to the dog especially if you have a dog with you the dog's going to start barking and yapping and then the seal will be you know distressed yeah so the seal is hauled out for its rest and remembering half of its time is spent out of the water so it's just trying to recuperate and trying to build up its energy again and trying to warm up again it's one of the big things for them and they're amazingly graceful in the water but they're amazingly clumsy on land they can't waddle around but they can't move very fast so their only line of defence it's not really escape it's to defend themselves as to attack excuse me so they'll tend to snap and I have taken part in seal surveys over the years and they've very strong teeth and you don't want to get bitten by one of them and you certainly don't want your dog to get bitten by one of them so it's another reason to keep them away the seal can't run away it can't just get out and it can't fly off like the birds can so they're going to defend themselves and if you do see a seal that's an obvious distress there's a hotline there is indeed yeah there's the Irish seal sanctuary I am seeing look up the Irish seal sanctuary and if you google that you'll find them they pop up very quickly and they've a load of fascinating information as well if you find a seal anytime I find anything I thought especially when my children are a bit smaller it's a wonderful opportunity to go home and then to get them to google that and look it up on the iPad and you sit with them or on the computer or whatever you have and start going through some of the start going through some of the information on them because the websites the Irish websites on that kind of thing be it for bats be it for seals be it any of those kind of websites they've got really really good over the last few years they've put a lot of resources into it and they're very accessible just some questions going back to birds where did the blue Ted go caller says that she's seen none about oh that's interesting just a little local drop-in population perhaps but they tend to move around at this time of year anyway some birds like the robin and the ren are very sight fateful so the robin that you hear singing this morning when you're defrosting the car or out and about that robin will be with you as long as nothing happens all winter whereas the blue tits they tend to move in flocks and they'll move around from trees to trees to trees and hopefully more will come but keep putting out the bird feed and they'll come someone has asked about robins why do they not eat off the bird feeders they don't have the dexterity a couple of times I've seen them jumping onto the bird feeder and pecking away the peanuts but it's very unusual normally they hang around the bottom and robins that's what they do if you're digging away in the garden the robin will come up because it's very curious but they think that behavior goes right back to when it was a woodland creature like before humans were there and when the boar or the deer or whatever else was rummaging through the forest they'd be following those kind of characters and looking for any little bugs that they've disturbed so the robins will hang around underneath the feeder but they won't have the dexterity unlike say the siskin which is another beautiful bird and something worth looking up if you have garden feeders look up the siskin S-I-S-K-I-N and they're bright bright yellow yellow and black birds and they'll hang upside down on the feeder so they're the opposite of the robin they're like little acrobats S-okay to get at what they need to S-to get at what they need and they're feisty too they'll chase off some of the bigger finches and what not the gorgeous things S-and finally someone says how to take my bird feeder away because it's attracted rats but I loved watching them to feed it's a tricky one S-yeah and I would start again but just start cautiously start with peanuts and just put in a few peanuts and nothing else unfortunately with that we referred to it earlier that the industry has turned into a huge industry bird feeding industry and not all the products are as they should be like any of these kind of industries when they start to explode so the big bags the cheaper bags of bird seed they tend to have a lot of wheat in them that the birds don't want and perhaps other seeds the birds don't want and if the bird is discarding those seeds and not picking them up well then something else might come whereas you're better off buying just a small bag for a few years of really high quality feed or another thing that I like to do is I buy a bag of porridge the cheapest porridge I can find and I'll put out just a sprinkle a thimble full on a little table nearby or even on the windowsill nearby and the birds will come and find that very quickly and gobble that up and then you'll know that you can put out a little bit more the next time a little bit more the next time and if there's any left over by the end of the day you know you're putting out a bit too much S-alright simple as that S-okay informative as always Angus thank you very much and more information about what you've been chatting about on your website obviously naturenorthwest.ie or on the Facebook or Instagram and all that yeah brilliant thanks John


erstanding that there are limited resources But that but that we don't want to send a message out As some speakers noted today that that that we don't that we aren't going to enforce And so I think as a maker of the motion That's it's important that I think we tell everyone in the community that while there is a a lot of needs and a lot of prior a lot of Demands on our system that this will be a this will be a priority for us going forward I'd like to call the question.  We have a motion and a second all those in favor I opposed It passes unanimously on items one through six twelve thirteen fifteen sixteen and eighteen Now moving back toward the other items an additional direction that we have supervisor. Coonerty. Do you want to take a shot at it? I'll take sure. I'll take a shot, which is um starting at item seven. This would this would be just I'm just going to do one item. I think we as a and I don't need to make these emotions, but uh as a board the For item number seven. I would um Enhance the setback from 200 feet to 400 feet As uh my motion To deal with potential odors So we'll read this item seven was to revive The best management practices provision regarding odor require that any cultivator operating zone districts other than ca obtained written concurrence Uh within a thousand feet the board is electing to Delete that recommendation from the planning commission based on this There's a recommendation on the floor instead to accept the planning department's recommendation Which is to enhance the setbacks which are currently 200 square feet to not square feet 200 feet to 400 feet of habitable structures on neighboring Parcels and if I get a second then I so that's a motion on that And there's a second from suvazir cap it Is there discussion on this item and I I guess i'll say what I I have real concerns. This is obviously one of the biggest neighborhood impacts we have The what gave me some Uh what modified some of those concerns was your discussion that as part of the annual review Uh smell impacts could be a reason for modifying a License and or revoking a license And so I think that should create an incentive on an annual basis For people to make sure that they are not having an an undue impact on their neighbors And as a point of clarification uh supervisor capited asked Because c a and a can be a j or r a can be adjacent to each other you didn't differentiate one c a so just to be clear That this would include c a Uh habitable structures from c a to another or c a to c a Think you're off For outdoor grow we do not this does not distinguish between zone districts. That's correct. Is that a question? Yes, okay. I have a question as well What would go with that if it's an indoor grow and they're they're not containing the odor Then uh that would be something for the code enforcement to go out and look at right Well, that's my question. Are we talking about only about outdoor grows here? Are we talking about outdoor and indoor grows? We would ask for clarification from your board on that. Okay, so The answer to that was outdoor based on the understanding of staff I I still would like additional direction that something on c a for indoor as well be addressed I don't feel as though and even if scrubbers aren't the answer from the majority of the board I don't feel as though staff has enough Flexibility now to address an issue that was coming from c a property Especially now with the reduction that we just voted on from 20 acres to 10 acres to address that sense. So I I don't I don't have I can't articulate what the language would be This could be a direction that comes back as part of the ordinance in a couple weeks But I think that c a There should be some component that allows flexibility for staff to create mitigations for c a parcels Even if we're not requiring a direct element of say scrubbers or a direct investment because it may be on a site As you had mentioned earlier robin on a site by site basis Currently c a is exempted from that which is my concern. I mean we're trying to address the odor I mean if the indoor growth is causing an odor then we got to have the same buffer for that under the current Ordinance proposed ordinance c a is exempted from That uh, supervisor leopold didn't mean to cut you off. No, I appreciate that and I appreciate the the uh, the question I understand the people's interest in wanting to create a greater buffer for outdoor grows And 400 feet is greater than a football field It's better than a thousand feet, which was more than three football fields But it it We have no idea whether this actually will work or not, right? I mean I It's it's a pretty large buffer I I can't think of anything else in the code where we have these kind of buffers again You can you can spray pesticides within 200 feet of someone's house um, and so It seems like This is this is more feel good than good policy and that that uh, That I'm not going to support it Because I think that it's not based in science or fact It's based on feelings and emotion and that's not a good way to make policy. We've worked very hard Uh, to to to try to win it down something that really works And that's why I can't uh support this I understand that that we do have some setbacks as you know 600 feet or setbacks from dispensaries to other locations like say schools as per the state regulations So I don't think it's Totally off off kilter with some of our other requirements within the greater cannabis Components that we have to have this setback, but it is true that we have nothing measurable or objective in that way Um If the maker of the motion would be willing uh to at least have as additional direction that staff Come back With something in regards to ca that would give them the flexibility So i'm not trying to open up this ordinance in a way that's concerning But I just want them to have the flexibility when there's the the licenses come up after a year that they actually can Put in requirements that would address odor mitigations on ca properties. That's a friendly. Yeah, that's friendly Yeah, and just to be clear We're still only talking about outdoor and your concern about ca is that even indoor that's correct because on all the other zone parcels They're required to have the scrubbers and everything else and that's an enforceable That's correct, and i'm not saying that there needs to be a scrubber I recognize on the february meeting there wasn't three votes for that support But on a site by site basis. I would like to see the some flexibility after a year if there's an issue That's what i'm bringing up. Yeah Is there any additional discussion on this? only that I I think it should include indoor grow and outdoor grow The odors the problem and again If it's only if the indoor grow doesn't have to do it, then I think I don't I don't get it. I mean So right now the proposal is outdoor grow only with additional direction that that staff come back On april 24th 24th april 24th in regards to ca include that includes indoor That would provide flexibility for odor mitigation for them, especially in the license renewal component What's the planning department's recommendation today indoor and outdoor or just outdoor the planning commission's recommendation just focused on outdoor And therefore the planning staff's recommendation Well, not recommendation, but options only included outdoor And then you're going to look at it and I come back on the 24th with the recommendation So I'm trusting you to come back on a recommendation for outdoor grow, but I don't know if it's coming or not It's coming on outdoor So the the motion today is to increase the setbacks for outdoor cultivation for all zone districts from 200 to 400 feet That's an increase in setbacks for all zone from 200 to 400 on ca specifically In february actually an item that you had voted for and did not require scrubbers on indoor Greenhouse grows or structure grows within ca so I've asked staff on a friendly amendment that my colleagues accepted to Come back with language that would give them flexibility around odor mitigation on indoor grows within ca as well Okay, and I would appreciate if you do come up with a no on the recommendation that you put it in writing that you're recommending no on Restrictions on the odor within 400 feet on indoor grow I rather than just a verbal. We're not going to put it in I want to see it actually If you put yes, I'm going to be in favor of it But if you if you don't have a recommendation for it, I want it to be addressed in writing Okay, so we have a motion and a second with an amendment So there's just been a lot of discussion and back and forth and staff is not clear on what this actual motion is So if you could state it stated in one in one the motion is Um Increased setbacks from outdoor cultivation to habitable structures on neighboring neighboring parcels from the current 200 feet to 400 feet with additional direction to come back to give with To give flexibility to the cannabis licensing officer For odor mitigation on ca land including indoor Clear as mud It's a tough item Okay, thank you. Thank you additional questions from Our bank of attorneys All those in favor high opposed. No it passes a 4-1 with supervisor leopold voting. No Supervisor Coonerty if you want to try for item 8 um I guess I don't I don't have as much of uh Uh, I don't have as much of an opinion on the supervisor. I would say the supervisor McPherson had proposed that We allow Class two extraction processes those that don't involve co2 and you can correct me supervisor McPherson if i'm wrong On r.a. Zone parcels and that they could include all parts of this the class 2 extraction process On property of a certain size and I didn't know whether you had an idea there supervisor McPherson. No, I didn't So item 8 so the the community knows of the planning commission's recommendation was to Remove eligibility for class 2 manufacturing operations in the r.a. Zone district The two options presented by county staff was to allow a limited subset of class 2 extraction processes such as activities Don't involve ethanol or co2 extraction on r.a. Zone And to allow class 2 extraction on larger r.a. Zone properties or with increased setback to neighboring properties The discussion at the board is to accept these options, but to further define them right now. So It looks like Option a is not an issue option b. We just needed to find what a larger Property would be defined as yeah I mean my my sense about the class 2 Manufacturing operations is that these are really non-volatile extraction processes and so I understand The concerns, but I think if we say on r.a. parcels larger than five acres That we would That that would work out well. I think that that's acceptable. Yeah You fine Is there additional discussion? We actually have a do you want to make that as a motion survive? I'll make it as a motion to allow The class 2 extraction on r.a. Zone parcels that Less than five acres that don't include any ethanol co2 extraction and over five acres all class 2 Manufacturing I'll second that Is there a discussion on this item? Additional discussion Okay, I have concerns about this item. So I'll just be voting no, but I appreciate the work that people have put into this So all those in favor I? opposed no Item Nine Is to under the planning commission's recommendation is to prohibit the joining of parcels to reach the minimum parcel size on r.a. Zone parcels or su zone parcels with Mountain residential or rural residential general plan designations I I guess supervisor McPherson was in favor of this item when you brought it forward. So I don't know if there's anybody that actually wants to Debate that element I thought it was made clear from supervisor leopold's questioning that this actually did not eliminate the 40% component Which is what the planning commission was aiming to do but Um Yeah, I'm happy to move this recommended action. I didn't know if there was If there was disagreement on the board about this, but I'll move that recommendation second Yeah, okay my sense about the su parcels is that I like that we found something that kind of allow people who've been operating to stay in place And it as part of a longer term planning effort to think about where It would be more appropriate and I think that that's a that's a good balance. I found that to be very useful for What the planning commission did? Okay, then we have a motion and a second to accept the planning commission's recommendation Which is to prohibit the joining of parcels to reach the minimum parcel size on r.a. Zone parcels or su zone parcels with Mountain residential or rural residential general plan designations. We have a motion and a second all those in favor I opposed that passes unanimously Uh, so now item 10 was to add a new cottage garden license category subject to the following a minimum parcel size of Two and a half acres maximum canopy of 500 square feet limited to ar atp and su zone districts Continuous cultivation by the applicant since before january of 2013 registration by cultivator with the county in 2016 Absence the complaints filed against the property within five years of applications The applicant must reside on the property all back cannabis business taxes must be paid in full Co-location and our master plans are prohibited a level five permit processing and the license is non transferable This is where we this is where we this is item number 10. Yeah, number 10 the uh With a staff record. Yeah the staff record. Um, but I think uh, well the proposal I would like to see is a level four For it processing. I think that I would support that so the option from Proposed by staff is to reduce the cottage garden land use permit Process to level four which maintains the public noticing requirement without the added time and expense of a public hearing There's a motion from supervisor McPherson to create this Uh new cottage garden licensing component with a second from supervisor leopold With a modification that would reduce the permit process to level four is their discussion on this item Um I express my concern with this. I think that the board should make a commitment then to look at other home occupations I think it's odd that we Well, you know, well, I just to that point, you know, when someone goes to get a home occupation permit they get it It doesn't come back every year, right? I mean this these licenses are very different than home occupation I understand your point, but if there's a problem that's going to come back Uh for licensure the following year we don't do that for home occupations Is there other discussion on this item with that one modification? All those in favor Opposed it passes unanimously Item 11 was to make the r.a. Zone parcels ineligible for relocation So I would make uh, I would move Uh, the recommended action make r.a. Zones parcels ineligible for relocation But you and use the uh, january 2013 date As as the benchmark so to prohibit relocation to r.a. Zone parcels unless the parcels have been under cannabis cultivation since prior to january 20 of 13 That's what you mean on the motion. Is there a second? There's a second. Is there a discussion? I would just say I understand the point. I think that uh r.a. Zone parcels of a certain size should we should include here um If we look at it at 10 acres or more That's a that's a that's a much shorter list And we could find some balance of making sure that uh That this work so I wouldn't I'm not going to support the uh motion Okay, I explained that I actually you've got a good point there. I What is the parcel size that we're voting on Well, this would say all residential ag parcels Would not be eligible for relocation So if I'm on a parcel and I want to move I'm going to be grandfathered in because I've had good practices that whatever my zone parcel is Now I want to move to a place that with this r.a. Zone parcel I would not be able to do it under this motion Okay Okay, um, I'm supportive of the motion I have concerns as was raised by some in the in the community about People trying to move on to these parcels that we're not already engaged in this activity I think the 2013 date is consistent with tpz. I think it should be something that we harmonize throughout the code And we'll have an opportunity to another item So we have a motion to make r.a. Zone parcels ineligible for relocation And to prohibit the relocation to r.a. Zone parcels unless the parcels have been under cannabis cultivation Since prior to january 2013 we have a motion and a second all those in favor I opposed no So we have a motion passes for want to supervisor leopold dissenting on that item Item number 14 To allow non retail commercial cannabis cultivation eligibility for parcel zone special use with mountain residential rural residential or agricultural general plan designations Subject to the following restrictions sites with the existing cannabis cultivation shall be subjected to a 10 acre minimum Sites where new cultivations proposed Shall be subject to a 20 acre minimum parcel size Staff had made an option on the january 2013 versus november 2016 component supervisor Coonerty, oh, sorry, sorry supervisor leopold. I'd be happy to advance this with the with the 2013 date I think it makes some sense Second So we have a motion and a second just to read it again This would allow non retail commercial cannabis cultivation eligibility for parcel zone su With mountain residential rural residential or agricultural general plan designations subject to these restrictions the sites with existing cannabis cultivation Have a 10 acre minimum sites with new that should have a 20 acre minimum parcel size However, in order to qualify as an existing cultivation site evidence must be provided that the site has been under cannabis cultivation since before January of 2013 That's the motion that's on the table There's a motion and second all those in favor I Opposed it passes unanimously Uh item number 17 is to provide a 24 hour comment and or message line within the cannabis licensing office Go ahead supervisor McPherson. We need to word this differently. I mean we're not going to have somebody at 24 7 so Uh what are you doing? Which I mean should we say, uh, I don't know. I don't even know if it's necessary I think we want to let them know that they can call in with the if people have a problem, but I don't know beyond that, you know, just simplify it. We haven't ring your house So current we do currently have a form on the website I think that I don't know if you need additional direction to add it on to citizens connect to things It makes a lot of sense to have the mobile app and will there be a phone number that people can also call Just like they would with code compliance And I don't know that we actually need To accept this item. So I think that the board just is an agreement that we won't actually accept that recommendation from the planning commission I don't believe we need action to not accept an item. Correct. Okay, correct Item number is that it? I think that's okay. Well, then we do have actual recommended actions that were put forward by staff to actually Schedule the public hearing direct the board with the clerk of the board, etc So items one through four of the recommended actions We're to consider recommendations from the planning commission regarding proposed amendments to the code chapter 7.128 13.10 and 16.01 Related amendments to the general plan local coastal program for cannabis licensing and land use regulations for non-retail commercial cannabis cultivation Manufacturing distribution to direct staff to prepare the final draft proposed amendments to the county code and general plan local coastal plan and related documents Including sequa findings to schedule a public hearing for April 24th 2018 at 9 a.m. Or thereafter To consider adoption and concept of the proposed amendments to the county code and general plan local coastal program Consideration of sequa findings and direct the clerk of the board to publish notice of the public hearing at least 10 days prior to the hearing date I know we have additional direction on other things, but do we have a motion for these items? I will move that second recommended action And a second so we have a motion and second on these we will have additional directions that we'll be providing We could do those as a separate motion or as additional direction on this motion. I'll leave it to Supervisor Coonerty Provisional authorization compassionate use And report backs either quarterly or semi-annually were something that had been presented by supervisor And I was also interested in in some of the other commercially zoned property to have a lower level of that's right So these there would we consider it a friendly amendment to Direct the chair of the board to write a letter encouraging On the compassionate use program that is a state law change. Okay Just supervise McPherson was allowing flexibility on quarterly versus semi-annually just an honest statement What would be can you do either or which one be preferred? We can do quarterly Okay, so a friendly amendment to I have quarterly report backs Which is something I know the community had asked for for a transparency perspective The provisional authorization It's understood what that is So making sure we got it. It is okay friendly amendment And on the m1 in c4. Was there another one? Yeah, c2 c2 parcel To have those similar to the ca definition Level four and and also flexibility or discretion to the uh the cannabis licensing officer About setbacks Are there questions on that is there is that clear from staff want to make sure before we leave you on this that you actually Oh, sir, please no, please the setbacks with respect to non conforming Yeah, specifically. Yeah the residential structures Are there any concerns or questions on this is to move the recommended actions with additional direction? We have a motion and a second includes the provisional authorization the compassionate use letter quarterly reports and A couple of different zones in the manufacturing and commercial To align them a little bit more with ca and Are there any other questions or concerns with that? No, that was a friendly amendment all those in favor Opposed it passes unanimously Believe it or not I don't want to adjourn anything make sure i'm right I believe that that is actually the entire thing that was before us today. Is that correct? Okay So we will see 99.9 of you on april 24th Uh and I appreciate all of your time coming forward and participating in the process