While many (most') of us sensibly spent Saturday relishing the comfort and refreshments of Chevron, and the excellent range of talks and presentations (many thanks to all concerned for organising and hosting it), my brother optimistically thought a birding walk from Goultrop to Martin’s Haven was called for. Before he nearly drowned, highlights were: Goultrop: 20+ Common Scoter, o/w 9 males,...
Government Intelligence organisation GCHQ, which reports to foreign secretary David Miliband and works with MI5 and MI6, is to run an ad campaign within Xbox Live to attract quick-thinking 18-34-year-olds. The campaign, to run on the Xbox Live platform which is home to epic games such as Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Assassin's Creed II, will be active for six weeks in the form...
The Brough on a bonny morn Louise's worry about moving here was that the wind would never cease and that the sun would never shine. So far about every third morning has been sunny and calm. I wandered down to the Shunan this morning, after a quick shufty around the garden (Fieldfare, Blackbird 5, Redwing 3) to find more Redwing, c100 down the track, with a good few more Blackbirds and the Shunan stuffed...
As the penduline tits had gone from Dungeness, David Campbell and I decided to go to Abberton Reservoir for the spotted sandpiper, an American wader that bore more than a passing resemblance to a common sandpiper. This trip turned out to be a harsh lesson in how it pays to do your homework before setting out. Abberton reservoir is large. It is man-made and eleven miles in circumference. The spotted...
A pretty productive day at Holme. The sea was surprisingly good, with a watch from 8:15-10:15am produced a Great Skua west, an Arctic Skua west, 11 Little Gulls (10 east, 1 west), 15 Kittiwakes , 4 Long-tailed Ducks (all drakes), 80 Gannets, 26 Red-breasted Mergansers, 13 Red-throated Divers, 4 Fulmars and 2 Goldeneye. A Lapland Bunting flew over east calling, 71 Snow Buntings flew west and a Merlin...
Birdwatching in the London Borough of Redbridge (Free subscription) | yesterday
please send your sightings to me at redbridgebirdwatching@hotmail.co.uk or by phone/text 07862 140777 thanx Wanstead Park: 2 Firecrest still, south east end of Reservoir Wood with Tit flock, female Goldeneye still present, 12 Siskin , 2 Goldcrest , 50+ Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit , 4 Fieldfare , 12 Redwing, 5 Song Thrush (S Fisher).
Juvenile Great northern Diver, Shustoke Res. Juvenile Great northern Diver Another place another time Juvenile Great northern Diver Juvenile Great northern Diver Saturday 21st November 2009 Felt like winter had arrived strolling round Dosthill this morning. Mild but dark with rain in the air. Stayed on the east side of the river but apart from a dozen Meadow pipits and a Grey Wagtail there was little...
As it seems to get right up everyone’s nose I've done another list with one or two sentences summing up my opinion. This time it's about Bond films. Copy and paste the following to give your own opinions. Dr. No (1962) From Russia with Love (1963) Goldfinger (1964) Thunderball (1965) You Only Live Twice (1967) Casino Royale (1967) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) Diamonds Are Forever (1971)...
Dave and I met up with Colin at Brandon Marsh this afternoon and greeted with the news that a Great White Egret was seen flying over the reserve this morning. We managed a few Siskin, single Lesser Redpoll and Sparrowhawk on our way to the East Marsh Hide where we had 12 Snipe, close views of a Water Rail and 2 Goldeneye. After 40 minutes we were treated to a brief but distant flight view of the Great...
I've had two trips to Abberton now, and both of them have been brilliant. Spoonbill doing Spoonbilling I got ticks, I saw good birds that weren't ticks, and I got chauffered to a very nice pub in Maldon called the Blue Boar. Good birds, good food/drink and good company , what more can you ask from a day out? Of course, tick birds for me are as scum underfoot to others - one of the few advantages of...
A total of 192 species was recorded by 15th November 2009 (LGRE Total = 174 - those marked in blue) Birds marked with an asterisk (*) are of unknown origin, most likely escapes from captivity 1) Great Crested Grebe 2) Little Grebe 3) BLACK-NECKED GREBE 4) LEACH’S PETREL 5) NORTHERN GANNET 6) Sinensis Cormorant 7) EUROPEAN SHAG 8) EURASIAN BITTERN 9) Little Egret 10) Grey Heron 11) WHITE STORK*...
A total of 193 species has been recorded by 15th November 2009 LGRE has seen 169 species (those marked in blue) 1) GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 2) Great Crested Grebe 3) RED-NECKED GREBE 4) Little Grebe 5) BLACK-NECKED GREBE 6) Atlantic Great Cormorant 7) EURASIAN BITTERN 8) LITTLE EGRET 9) Grey Heron 10) WHITE STORK 11) EURASIAN SPOONBILL 12) Mute Swan 13) WHOOPER SWAN 14) EURASIAN WHITE-FRONT* 15) PINK-FOOTED...
Tradecraft: Shirley Bassey, Sean Connery Reunite In a front page story, The Hollywood Reporter reports that "the voices of Shirley Bassey and Sean Connery have been drawn together on a feature for the first time since they were both involved in Goldfinger back in the day. Bassey has signed up to sing the title song named 'Guardian of the Highlands' for the CGI animated movie Sir Billi , which...
15th November 2009 The "no birds" bit isn't strictly true, although no interesting birds probably is. A walk around Whitlingham after the strong winds was notable only for a female Goldeneye , the first I've seen there this autumn. The best part of the day was finding a number of Bird's Nest fungi ( Crucibulum laeve ) on twigs near my house. (Well worth looking up on google). These tiny fungi...
Simple Thoughts - Java and Web Blog (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
Review: 'Super Marios' gets multiplayer makeover Even before it refined family fun with the Wii, Nintendo was dedicated to creating satisfying multiplayer experiences. Games like "Mario Kart," "Super Smash Bros." and "GoldenEye 007″ encouraged everyone to join in, and you missed the real action if you played them alone. But Nintendo's flagship franchise, "Super Mario...
Videos
