No White-tailed Eagles for Ken Hill next year...

The planned program to release sixty Polish White-tailed Eagles in North Norfolk has been cancelled: reading the attached article from the Daily Telegraph, it's not hard to see why. Have you ever seen such a bunch of ill-informed, prejudiced poppycock in all your life? Does the writer have any data from Mull about pig-scaring Eagles? Don't the Poles keep pigs? How about Scandinavian farmers? And as for all the nonsense about small raptor species wiping out songbirds: does the writer not feel that destruction of hedgerows and copses and the casual use of insecticides might be of greater significance?

A milestone of sorts!

My eclectic little blog has just reached 700,000 visits since I began posting ten years ago. I can't hope to compete with top bloggers like Penny: blogging has steadily declined in favour of 'lazier' options like Twitter and Facebook and I've never taken the advert / sponsorship route. However, I'm delighted that around 300 people a day still read my ramblings and - presumably - enjoy looking at the wildlife and astronomy images: thanks to you all for the support!

I must be getting old....

Just back from a few day's family visit in Plymouth: we left last night at 10.00, arriving this morning at 03.45. As hoped, the roads were virtually empty, despite the preferred route being our usual A30 / M5 / A303/ M3 / M25 / M11 (Some of the worst roads in England!) Needless to say I'm now absolutely shattered!

We enjoyed spending time with Linda's Mum, brother Barry and his partner Judy at their beautiful home, in Plymouth itself and some of the surrounding region. Favourites were, I suppose, the terrific restaurant in Plymouth Barbican (this has an amazing exterior mural which has sadly faded) Totnes and its market and the craggy region around Burrator Lake.

Not many birdy moments, but Ring-necked Parakeets in Central Park were noteworthy, as were Nuthatches, Mistle and Song Thrushes and a prowling Sparrowhawk that put all the pigeons in Totnes Market to flight!

A belated year tick!

A recent trip  down to Plymouth to visit relatives wasn't really an opportunity for birding, but nevertheless a walk   along Plymouth Hoe turned up four Shags on rocks below the promenade. This may be the latest date that I've ever added the species to the - frankly dismal - year list!

Other highlights of the visit were an amazing Anthony Gormley sculpture that only looks like a human from some distance away, a fabulous lunch of sea-bass and dauphinoise and Smeaton's Tower (the original Eddystone Light)

The Orion Nebula and a fabulous Moon-set

Orion is probably one of the two or three constellations that most people can identify: the 'belt' of three stars was reputedly copied by the Ancient Egyptians as the layout of the three pyramids at Giza.

Orion is a winter constellation and is just becoming visible in the southern dawn sky. The images below are of the cluster of nebulae (gas clouds) that lie along the sword of the 'Great Hunter'.

The waxing Moon sets shortly after the Sun and was a splendid sight, hanging over the rooftops at the end of our road.

Fabulous seawatch at Cley!

It's been a while since Brian and I have had a morning out together, but he's back from Germany, so a 7.30 meet-up was in order! With nothing special reported, we headed for Cley: first stop was Bishop's Hide, which gave distant views of a few Godwits and a Greenshank. We decided to give the centre hides a bash, but apart from a closer Greenshank there was little to see.

Now I'm a huge fan of seawatching (Brian less so!) but with a north-westerly blowing, my companion didn't need any encouragement. We were soon perched on the shingle, conveniently close to the very engaging Robin Chittenden, who kindly called out some interesting birds. Chief among these were a couple of Purple Sandpipers and - bizarrely - a drake Mandarin! Lots of Auks, Red-throated Divers, Common Scoters and Gannets giving close views. It was pretty chilly, so we adjourned for coffee and cheese scones. After a largely unproductive walk along the East Bank, we returned to the Coastguards for more of the same: this time I managed to catch a Grey Phalarope as it tazzed westwards!

Raptor reprise

While Linda and I were washing the car (!) 'our' pair of Buzzards circled over in an entertaining display flight...

Early morning raptors

As I was catching up with correspondence this morning I glanced through the office window to see a Marsh Harrier heading east over fields at the end of the garden: I managed one quick snap. A little later Linda called my attention to the mewing call of a young (?) Buzzard from the same area: soon after our resident female spiraled past.

A successful day at Kelling

Perhaps because of the two years of C-19 restrictions, the footfall at Kelling Heath Star Party was the best I can remember: as well as meeting lots of old friends we had our best ever day financially: Linda even sold out of honey!