A couple of visits (Friday and yesterday) with
PAL over in
Norfolk (Permit Only) somebody has to grab the baton.
September is officially the driest since 'modern' records began (1910) and is the 5th warmest as far as England is concerned. Last nights torrential downpour will have raised levels somewhat. The edge has been very good for all sorts of feeding birds but i have'nt clocked any waders thus far but there's still time.
Green Woodpeckers move about this time of year and both an adult and a juv-type have been seen and heard. Grey Wagtail over and feeding around the inflow/outflow. A solitary Juvenile Grey Heron has taken up residence. The only Summer migrant has been a single Chiffchaff, presume juvenile on call. feeding around the edge vegetation. Friday saw a juvenile
Little Grebe pop up right in front of me which was a nice surprise:eek!: Yesterday as i was leaving i thought that it had gone and out of the corner of my eye i spotted it emerging on the far side with a little fish in its' beak. They can always be very elusive diving for quite long periods and then emerging close to the edge vegetation in which they are almost invisible. To my surprise, directly in the line of sight to the Grebe, a small dark duck paddled away to join the Mallard. This is a about the time of year when Teal:eek!: disperse so it should be expected but i only record them about twice annually.
A couple of pop-ins to
Mary Stevens Park produced 50-75 Black Headed Gulls and a single 1W Lesser Black Back and a calling Nuthatch.
It's bad enough returning from Spain with a stinking cold and headache in addition to tripping over the only protruding piece of rock in El Rocio:C The incident which, altho painful at the time did'nt hinder me much with the birding but a swelling has returned with a vengance as a painful reminder of the
'trip'. To make matters worse i had a dental appointment for what should have been a large filling but turned out to be another piece of me that i have had for about 57 years being tossed, with a reassuring clank, into the waste-bin. Whilst waiting for one side of my face to freeze i thumbed thru the February issue of that must-have reality-check monthly glossy..........
CountryLife. I
must renew my membership asap.
I'm not joking it's like looking at creatures from another planet. Aga's, Debutantes, Barbours, Springers, Labradors etc etc. The 'Just Married' section with both surnames and shotguns double-barrelled and the honeymoons in Bali, the Maldives and Kenya - do they know that poor people go there as well/ Altho probably not on Kuoni-organised safaris.
They always have articles on wildlife, a biggie this month on wait for it.....House Sparrows, their history from
'bow and arrer' much beloved of those East-End people, it's fecundity and reasons for decline if only the last bit applied to the 'Archers' set. There seems no shortage of the shiny-headed chinless wonders, Ruperts, Rodneys, Clarissas and Arabellas a-plenty. The real countryside stuff is reserved for the bashing of various species. It was the turn of the usual suspects the Goosander and Cormorant both described as 'fish-guzzlers' and how they will get their come-uppance courtesy of a three-year scheme paid for by the, us, the great unwashed into controlling their numbers. How they must wish they could implement something similiar for the working classes? In addition there were the standard letters on Birds of Prey and Buzzard control in particular.
Just do the sums - only 4 pairs of Hen Harriers were known to have bred in the English uplands this year and these only due to extensive protection measures. Two birds with transmitters have already stopped sending information. These bits of hi-tech are extremely reliable so it looks like a bit of instant lead-poisoning. These large tracts of land are estimated to be able to hold a minimum of
320 pairs of these magnificent
'Skydancers'. The only reason they don't is because it is the stronghold of driven Grouse shooting. There is an unwillingness for locals to report anything suspicious and it is difficult to Police.....'nuff said.
To really cap it all the Tories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory are having their annual 'scrounger-bashing' fest in Birmingham, WTF are they doing up here? I thought their spiritual home was Brighton or are memories of Maggie still too tender? Their first day has been promises to make life even more difficult for those that struggle, after all - there's no votes lost with that lot. They need reminding that more people need there wages topping up that are in work than out of it. This subsidises employers and thus makes the minimum wage the maximum wage. All this rhetoric and pontification from the
'Bullingdon' or Bully for short 'Boys once described as 2 posh boys who would'nt know the price of a pint of milk. A Billion here and a Billion there is fine but they have 'saved' an estimated
500 Billion:eek!: by raising the retirement age by 2 years! What other civilised country would have allowed that to have been made law without a period of consultation following by sessions of healthy debate and then riots on the streets?
Sorry to rant on, it did start with birds and the countryside but it's never that simple - not in my world anyway
Below - The New Joker and BullyBoys, Cameron/Osborne/Johnson are in there. MP's pro-rata are the most nepotistic 'profession' following by acting (there's a surprise) and of course the BBC!
