Celebration
Not much to report this week as everything has evolved around my eldest son’s wedding on October 3rd. Once my wife and ten month old grandson had been rescued by the Fire Brigade from being locked in the toilet everything went OK!! On Hopwood Snipe and Skylarks continue to move South but still no migrant […]
Dry Weather All Week
The number of Autumn Crocus in flower at Hopwood is the best for some years but their stalks are so fragile they only stop upright for a few days. In the scrub area by the railway a Willow Tit was calling today – perhaps it is on its way to our garden As usual at […]
Late Summer Continues
With the exceptionally calm weather a visit to Pennington Flash produced some wonderful film of Lapwings with mirror reflections in the flat calm water. Even in Autumn they have some fabulous colours to view despite some of the crests being a bit tatty. On Hopwood the first Skylarks are now moving through, along with small […]
Summer At Last
At long last five beautiful, calm, warm days to bring Summer to a close. In the garden there are now Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell and Speckled Wood butterflies flitting about from flower to flower. A visit to the Hodder Valley produced Kingfisher, Goosander and many charms of Goldfinches feeding on the ripening hedgerow seeds […]
Wet August
It is a good job there hasn’t been much to film this month because the weather has been awful. Islay has had eight inches of rain during August so I am glad I haven’t been up there either! In between the rain we have had some butterflies in the garden including Peacocks, Comma, Red Admiral […]
Swallows On The Move
Once again the Swallows at the Golf Club have had a successful season with more than fifty young fledged from five/six pairs. This year with only one room available for them to nest in two pairs have bred on the outside of the buildings, one on an alarm and the other just attached to the […]
Back To Earth
After two weeks in the Arctic Ice it is difficult to return to the local scene against the backdrop of thundering traffic on the M62. A visit to Pennington Flash produced five Green Sandpipers, good to see but always too far away to film. A family party of Bullfinches and a Willow Tit were also […]
Spitsbergen Re-Visited
I couldn’t resist a further two photos from Spitsbergen. One the female Polar Bear enjoys a bit of back scratching. The other is of one of Spitsbergen’s most stunning flowers, the Boreal Jacobs Ladder.
Polar Bear Feast
After four visits to Spitsbergen and no decent photographs of Polar Bears it all came good last week with seven bears being seen in one day and a total of twenty six for the ten day voyage. I am going to remember the thirtieth of July for a long time with spectacular Arctic weather in […]
Eighty Degrees North
The next two weeks I am in Spitsbergen, cruising the fiords on the Professor Molchanov and making shore landings by way of zodiacs as shown in the photo. The aim is to obtain good views of such things as Polar Bears, Walrus and Ivory Gulls but nothing is guaranteed. On last years visit the weather […]