Morning all: Here's to a good week for everyone. Check out latest pages of last week's thread to see great pix by OG of a kestrel on a road sign and a signpost for migrating birds and Gary's photos of the lovable Toffee plus his Toffee-proof technology. Just had dinner and managed to turn perfectly lovely piece of halibut into shoe leather! Hate it when that happens, but was busy watching weather forecast. Desk is looking cleaner - can actually see the surface now. Take care all!
Good afternoon SheilaFE and I am like you in that i love to sit by the sea listening to the waves and the seabirds. Very relaxing and very good for calming you down.
Margobird
Hello Annette and good that your leaky shower has been fixed.
So pleased you got to see whales and dolphins but they are taking a risk when the whales are around. Thanks for the link to the website. Something else to look at .
Osprey at Hilton Head:
Decided to defer HW as it was sunny so went for walk down by the river. Upstream must have had quite a bit of rain in the night or the snow on the mountains is melting fast as river is quite high. First spotting of an Oyster Catcher flying upstream. A sign that spring is in the air. The silliest bird ever as it will lay its eggs on the stones at the side of the river, we then have a lot of rain and its bye bye eggs. Sad really.
HW still on hold as OH has gone to the doctors and I am on office phone and e mail alert, so anything noiset is out of the question...shame!!
Thanks Alan for the screen capture of osprey at Hilton Head.
Good morning to all I have not mentioned, bit late on here this morning. Have had a morning where I was going nowhere fast.
OH left at around 6.30 this morning to call in at the office on his way to the station and found he had a flat tyre so not a very good start for him. An hour late for his first meeting or so he thought. He found out the person he was going to see wasn't even in the country and had not even bothered to let him know. Now he has a few hours to waste before he goes to see 2 more clients this afternoon, the last one being at 5.00 so goodness knows what time he will be back tonight.
Some really good news about Billy Whizz. Yesterday late afternoon I was watching him playing with something in our drive and wondered whether it was a bird so I went out to have a look. He was actually playing with an elastic band that postman dropped. He was so engrossed he didn't realise that I was standing right by him. I didn't attempt to stroke him but just talked quietly and eventually he moved off and sat on the lawn. I hasten to add that I threw the elastic band away as It didn't want him choking himself on it. We are going to try and get some toys for him at the weekend that we could possibly tie on the garden chairs where he feeds as we have noticed he is quite playful at times. No doubt he will be around much more today, probably sunning himself on the patio as at the moment the sun is shining. I can't tell you how delighted I was to have got so close to him.
We had a marvellous evening with Chris Packham, a very well presented talk with lots of humour but not silly humour. Said he must have driven his parents mad from the time he was 8 with all the animals he had in boxes and jam jars. Started with a slide show of photographs he has been taking over the past year. Tigers, lions, elephants and foxes. Stunning photo of elephants at a waterhole with their reflections in the water. All that he showed were available to buy and I just had to have the one of the elephants. His first love is birds though and every year he goes to Gambia to photograph them. Can't believe the positions he gets in to take them, one shot showed him in the water up to his chest with crocodiles in close proximity. He always stays in the hotel in Gambia where they have 200 different species of birds just in the hotel grounds. Beautiful birds that I have never heard of. OH said perhps we should think about going there the year after next, it would make a wonderul holiday I am sure.
He also explained how the background is most important to him and in his garden he had set up a contraption to film woodpeckers and bluetits. One of the bluetit photoes showed another acrobatic bluetit such as original goldfinch posted the other day. He was very pleased, as was I, to see so many children in the audience. As he says nature's future is with them and we must do all we can to educate and get them involved in wildlife. He finished up with a question and answer session. One of the questions was about Panda an his view on their conservation. After listening to his reply I could see where he was coming from although I may not necessarily agree with it. He mentioned tiger conservation as an example and said even with the huge programme of tiger conservation their deline is still ongoing and in the last 10 years over 41% have disappeared. Much of this is due to humans and tigers being in the same place. What they hope to do is educate these people and get them if possible to live side by side with nature to ensure it's success.
Talk last over 2 hours and the theatre was full. He is extremely knowlegable and so enthusiastic about his work. We would certainly like to see him again, amazing how quickly that 2 hours went.
Hope you all have a good day and for those without sun, hope you get some soon.
Margo: Your evening with C.P. sounded wonderful and as I am a great fan of his I am quite envious.
Oh joy! Sunshine and high thin cloud! What a difference a day makes.
My first excited comment is to thank Alan for the news of the UK's first sighting of returning osprey. How wonderful to know that EJ and Odin will soon be winging their way back up thru the UK to LG. I hope Lady P's BP soon returns to normal.
Auntie the killing of the birds by the authorities - what a dreadful story, but thank you for letting us know.
Diane I enjoy thunderstorms too, particularly at night - as long as I am safe indoors! I am sorry to hear that yet more of the white stuff is predicated. Is the garage door left open for your 'critters'! Congrats on winning Lindybird's competition - well done.
Lindybird have a lovely time with Sweetpea. I am looking forward to your poem!
WendyB I wish your husband good news.
Margobird your evening with Chris Packham sounds really interesting. I have seen him speak of his photography on TV - I saw him a couple of years ago (I think, but time flies these days) at the Bird Fair.
Just off to given my pint of blood to the vampires!
Enjoy your afternoon - hopefully with sunshine.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/
Osprey returns early in US:
http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2011/02/8652/group-might-have-spotted-earliest-osprey-return-ever/
WendyB a walk in the sunshine defintiely sounds better than HW. Hope you have some news about your OH, have been thinking of you.
WendyB forgot to say CP is much taller than he looks on the TV. I was also impressed as he was in foyer before the talk, during the interval and after it had all finished, still answering questions. He put some shots up of himself in his younger days. Do you remember when he had blonde spikey hair.