Sad to hear of the death of Jim Lovell, the engaging and friendly commander of Apollo X111. Veteran of three other space missions, I had the pleasure of meeting Capt. Lovell on three occasions, spending several memorable hours chatting with him about spaceflight, meteorites and the restaurant business!
At the moment - and for the next few days - there's lots to see in the night sky. Tonight (9th) is the so-called 'Sturgeon Moon' - very low in the southern sky. Just before dawn Jupiter and Venus are getting ever closer, while Saturn and Neptune are snuggling up in Pisces!
There were a couple of decent groups of medium-sized sunspots at 5.30pm: also a possible filament left centre...
Here're the main points of today's 10.20am broadcast with the delightful Jules Button on 'Suffolk Sound'
The two brightest objects in the sky (after the Sun and Moon, of course!) are drawing together in the dawn sky - they'll be really close on the 12th!
Not really fancying a two hour drive / walk to see a distant LBJ in Suffolk, Brian, Norman and I decided to start at Titchwell, visiting Cley and Hickling on the way home.
We knew there wasn't much about, but nevertheless enjoyed connecting with Spoonbills, Snipe and LRPs at Titchwell, while Bishop's at Cley provided distant views of Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper and Cattle Egret. Swallowtails are being seen at Hickling again - but not by us! Our best 'find' was a male Kingfisher that briefly posed on the railings by the 'mound' at Brendan's Marsh.
The local farmer having manured the barley stubble by the churchyard, large numbers of gulls have appeared to feed on the associated invertebrates. To our delight, Linda and I discovered that a fair percentage of these are Mediterranean Gulls, followed by Common Gulls, Lesser Black-backs and - in the distinct minority - Black-headed Gulls. Today they were joined by a solitary Yellow-legged Gull - new for the church list!
There are lots of Brown Hares in the fields around Hemblington Church this year: there are also plenty of Buzzards in the skies above it. Sometimes the two come together...
