So much hot air

Today I was determined to blip a gold finch (which I did) but in the process I managed to capture a shot of a great tit. Here he is:

Great tit feeding

I thought I’d posted about the Montgolfiers before but I can’t find more than a casual mention. And so, for my mother’s edification…

The Story of the Montgolfiers
The first person to fly in a hot air balloon was Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier and, along with his brother Joseph-Michel, they built and developed the first ones. The first test flight of a full size model was made on 14 December 1782.

There’s a smaller model of their invention at the Science Museum.

Model

On one of our trips to France, we spotted two cute little hot air balloons, hanging from the ceiling in a shop. Mirinda was very keen on buying them so she went up to the counter and, in her best French said she wanted to buy the two hot air balloons (“Ballons à air chaud“).

The woman behind the counter looked at her like she was an idiot. She rattled something about not having any balloons. Mirinda repeated the request while pointing and mentioning the colours as well. The woman just stared, without a clue as to what Mirinda was referring to.

Of course, by this time, Mirinda was not happy and was accusing the French woman of not knowing her own language. She angrily trounced over to where the balloons were and gesticulated wildly repeating “Ballons à air chaud!“.

The woman looked quizzical and said “Mongolfier?” And everything was fine. You see, the French word for hot air balloon is Montgolfier, after the brothers who invented them.

Every since, we have called them Montgolfier as well just because it sounds nicer and means we can easily remember the name of the first guys who went up in a hot air balloon.

There was a lot of blue tit action in the garden this morning so I managed to get the inevitable photos of Barry. Here he is holding on to the smallest little piece of plastic in order to feed without a perch.

Blue tit death grip