Finches!

A few years ago Greenfinches were pretty thin on the ground: they seemed to have been suffering from some dreadful infection that 'glued' their feathers together. I'm pleased to report that there has been a dramatic upturn in these attractive birds' number (in our area, at least) It is not uncommon to look from my office window and see a flock of thirty or more in our Sycamore and Ginkgo trees, often accompanied by a similar number of Goldfinches. I'm sure the huge amount of quality seed that Linda puts out every day has a lot to do with this!

Amazing sunrise - and a Redwing at last!

A truly beautiful sunrise this morning: the 'red sky in the morning' adage doesn't seem to have held true, though, because the sky has ben cloudless and blue all day so far...  Finally our berry-rich cotoneaster tree has been visited by a Redwing - just a solitary bird, which is surprising.

Copper Beech

Fantastic night at the Copper Beech, despite me suffering from the after effects of a flu' jab the day before. (I ached all over and had a raspy sore throat)

The boys (!) played out of their skins and we had a fabulous response from an enthusiastic crowd - shout out to the Dereham Crew who'd come all the way by taxi, and the 'yummy mummies' and their kids who danced right through until the end!

SYNERGY at the Copper Beech!

If you've never seen us live, tonight would be a good introduction  to our music, with a three-hour set of classic rock & blues! Guranteed no Christmas songs!

Well I never!

My older brother Rob sent me this photo of a page from December's Sky at Night magazine. While it's great to see one of my comet Lemmon images was published, I genuinely don't remember sending it to them!

The Moon and Regulus...

On December 10th the Moon occulted (passed in front of) the bright star Regulus, leading star of the constellation Leo. Unfortunately, this occurred during the daytime, but I did manage a photo just before dawn that shows the beautiful blue-white colour of Regulus.

North Coast with Brian

Since I needed to pick up some smoked fish from the excellent Smokehouse at Brancaster Staithe, Brian and I started at Titchwell, walking out to the sea to look for divers and grebes. There were lots of waders: Sanderling, Knot, Grey Plover, Turnstone and so on. Eventually we found a couple of Great Northern Divers, as well as a Slavonian Grebe and a Black-throated Diver - too far out for useable photos. Several Red-breasted Mergansers scooted by offshore. On the way back to the carpark we added Water Rail to the tally, as well as (probably!) the reported Siberian Chiffchaff. (Excellent top photo by Brian!)

The move to Cley for coffee wasn't particularly productive, so we carried on to Ludham Airfield where we eventually located two Bewick's Swans among a herd of Whoopers.

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It begins!

It is impossible to be tasteless when you're nearly 75!

Conjunction!

The Moon and Mars were pretty close last night, the Moon having 'overtaken' Jupiter during the daytime.

Sunday night

Saturday night

December wildlife survey at Hemblington Church

Despite the cool breeze and hazy overcast, Linda, Sue, Peter and I carried out the monthly survey at 'the little church on the hill'. Not too much about, but enough to make things worthwhile. (Linda has obtained some terrific video on her trail cam: I'll post those once she sends them to me!)

Sawbills

Just for completeness: another 'set' of birds I've encountered in Norfolk. These delightful fish-eating ducks have serrated bills to help them cling on to their prey: these are typically long and thin, There are three regular UK species: Red-breasted Merganser and Goosander are both breeders, while Smew are somewhat scarce winter visitors. A fourth species - the Hooded Merganser - was only admitted to the British list in 1999, so the two I've seen (both females: one at Titchwell, one at Cley) are not strictly 'tickable'! I didn't manage a photo of either...

Seven planets: no telescope!

Regular readers may remember that I reluctantly sold my telescope and CCD camera outfit because a new 'neighbour' insisted on having super-bright outdoor lights (back and front) turned on most nights, all night. However, I've found that my Canon R7 and Pentax K3 can image even quite faint objects down to magnitude 10, given a sturdy tripod and appropriate exposure / aperture. Using them, I've managed to capture all seven planets - eight, including the Earth - as well as excellent shots of the Moon and several comets. A terrific help if you fancy having a bash is the Heavens Above website, from which you can obtain all the date and location data you need!

Here are the seven planets, in order outwards from the Sun: