A big improvement in the weather this morning - it isn't snowing - so off I went to work to keep the cogs of Britain turning.
Walking down into town - still no chance of getting the car out - 2 Grey Lag Geese flew over heading south honking away. Before I left the 20 Siskin were still in the trees by the house but no sign of the Waxwing there or along the road at Warkworth Drive this morning.
It took a lot longer to get home this evening. It was dark of course but at one point in the snow and hail I heard some birds calling overhead and a large flock of Common Gull were flying over, again heading south. I've seen up to about half a dozen at a time this winter, but this flock was made up of at least 45 and should have been roosting somewhere by now. Most unusual.
Didn't do too well in 2017 in keeping the blog up to date did I?, so must try harder.
This oldish semi disabled "codger" tries to get out every day. I go to the local country park, the Rising Sun, when the roads and footpaths are dangerous. I couldn't sit and look out of the window, no matter what the weather. I could have done with the tennis racquets a couple of times today while exploring "off track" in the park as i was negociating depths of about 18 inches of snow at times.
ReplyDeleteJohn
I'm located in America, doing the final edits of my book on double-crested cormorants. I see you have cormorants on your list. Over here cormorants are not well-liked and are generally persecuted by fishing interests, even though they are protected by the MBTA.
ReplyDeleteJohnny - I'm so old I knew the Rising Sun when it was known as Swallow Pond but its been quite a while since I was there. Yes the good old days, I lived in Jarrow as a lad, and used to go there once a week. Used to walk there, through the pedestrian tunnel and up the the A19 (A1 then I recall). Walked on the road most of the time, so little traffic - resident Corn Bunting, winter roosts of 20+ Short-eared Owl, Black-winged Stilt. I saw my first Great Grey Shrike and Crossbill there I remember - strange I can remember all this but forget who and where I am!
ReplyDeleteDennis,
ReplyDeleteThe Cormorants are persecuted here too by fishermen, even though legally they cannot be unless under license. Having said that, even legally about 2,000 are shot every year and I suspect its easily much more are killed illegally. The UK holds internationally important numbers of wintering Cormorants and the number increasing inland, especially on fish stocked reservoirs & rivers has been quite dramatic. I can understand the fisherman's concerns but then again when they decide to build Western Europe's largest Salmon Farm within 500m of one of the largest breeding colonies of Cormorant in the UK, surely they are asking for trouble.
I lived in North Shields as a young 'un and spent most of my time on my bike. We used to cycle all over and i remember well heading "south" and have vivid memories of hanging on to the bike for all i was worth as i decended the escalator in the pedestrian tunnel then bombing along through the tunnul shouting and screaming as i sped along.
ReplyDeleteCheck out my blog http://sedgedunumwarbler.blogspot.com/ if you haven't already done so. swallow Pomd features heavily on it at this time of year. I bump into a number of older guys there who talk me through what it was like when they were young.
Always interesting.
John