Just west of Hemblington Church is the curiously-named High Noon Lane: on the right just up the hill from the Alpaca farm is a dew pond - a semi-permanently flooded circular pool. Today, for the second time this year, a Green Sandpiper was feeding on its margins. (The smaller bird is a Pied Wagtail)
Somehow a gibbous Moon looks even more beautiful when it's just above the horizon. The Alpine Valley is clearly visible next to the dark-floored crater Plato, towards the lunar north pole.
It's usually not a good thing to discover a Hedgehog in the miiddle of the day, but this little individual seemed in good health: he (she?) enjoyed a drink in the splash pool before demolishing a bowl of hedgehog food and trotting off under the hedge...
You may recall that Linda and I collect antique glasses: amongst our collection are a number of Uranium glasses. These contain 2% - 5% by mass of Uranium dioxide, causing them to fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Today, on a brief visit to our local garden centre, we came across a set of six absolutely gorgeous wine or cocktail goblets: some we'll use when friends come round for dinner, but one went straight onto the shelves!
The highest point of the Moon's path across the sky is currently low in the south, meaning photos are always somewhat distorted by haze and shimmer: you are looking sideways through hundreds of kilometres of atmosphere, as opposed to around fifty when looking straight up. Nevertheless, the near first quarter Moon was a lovely sight last night...
Despite most of the flowers on our large Buddleia being past their best, we had a visit from a Hummingbird Hawkmoth while we were enjoying the afternoon sunshine with our friends Jane and Jason yesterday: it - or another - was back today....
Old friends Jane and Jason drove uip from Sussex in the hope / expectation of seeing their first Kingfisher on the boat trip out of the Museum of the Broads, Stalham. They weren't disappointed: we actually encountered six birds - mostly fleeting glimpses, but several did pose for a photo!
Brian, Norman and I started the day at Cley, where the only birds of any note were four Spoonbills on Pat's and a few Sandwich Terns passing by the 'Beach Hotel'. The pager announced that a Red-necked Phalarope was visible from the Jordan Hide at Holkham, so we headed west (through a bunch of totally unnecessary diversions) before trudging out through the woods to the hide. A lot of searching provided a couple of brief views, which I seem to have imaged. (You'd have needed the Hubble telescope to get anything reasonable!) A distant Hobby was interesting...
Lots of newly-arrived Pink-footed Geese here and all along the coast - first sign of Winter! We drove back to Cley for coffee, before a brief visit to Bishop's and Babcocks - nothing new to report - and so home to mow the lawn..
Well, the clouds eventually cleared towards sunset and by walking down our road I could grab some images of the Moon and Venus: interesting to see how far apart the two have moved since the occultation at midday... Venus' tiny crescent was plainly visible with binoculars (last photo)
As I sort of expected, today's lunar occultation of Venus took place behind a fast-moving cloud bank: I hope some other observers might have got more lucky!
Several Red Kites came to check me out and a juvenile wagtail on the dew pond neat the Alpacas looked reasonable for a Grey Wagtail, which would be a first for the Church neighbourhood (although I have seen a couple at Pedham)
Well: not actually the kitchen, but the storeroom next to it. Linda went to fetch something from the freezer last night and discovered a small bat (Pipistrelle?) whizzing up and down! I managed a few photos - not realising the camera battery was nearly flat - before we released the little fellow unharmed into the night. How it got in is a mystery...
