The long weekend...

Okay, it’s all just a small piece of history now but here’s a run down of last weekend…

We arrived at The Flowerpot in plenty of time for the Bluehorses gig on Friday, almost 2 hours early in fact! Well, it gave us chance to catch up with the band and a few of the regular faces, that and a little time for a beer! Whilst chatting with Nic and Liz we tried to work out just how long Lynda and I have been following the band - we reckon it must be approaching 11 or 12 years now! Doesn’t time fly!!!

When the Bluehorses took to the stage the first thing that the crowd noticed was the new stage gear - all the band were wearing kilts, black kilts! What more would you expect from a band that are probably the only Celtic-rock-folk-heavy-metal-goth band around? The other change came in the form of Rhayn Jooste, the band's new bass player. Rhayn, as we later found out, is a very nice chap and a damn good bass player too! He owns a rather cool pair of New Rock boots as well!

The set list comprised of 16 tracks in all; the highlights (for me) being “Witch In Wedlock”, “Billy Boy”, “Gravel Walk” and “Sitting Pretty” a song that always gets the crowd bouncing! Yep, I bounce, even at my age! “Skyclad” is a track that really tests a bass player and I was waiting to see just how Rhayn would cope with this one in front of a live audience - he played a blinder! Anyone seeing the band for the first time would have thought he had been playing “Skyclad” for years. All in all, a great night's music.

Liz - Bluehorses

Jay - Bluehorses

Liz - Bluehorses

Nic - Bluehorses

Jay & Liz - Bluehorses

Rhayn - Bluehorses

Liz - Bluehorses

Rhayn - Bluehorses

Liz - Bluehorses

After getting to bed at just after 12:30AM on Saturday, we were up again at 5:00AM to head off to Kent for a long weekend of bird watching. On the Saturday, we visited two reserves, Lee Valley Country Park and Rainham Marshes, both of which were new sites for me. Lee Valley provided what was possibly the best birding of the weekend - after only walking a very short distance onto the reserve we came across a group of six Hobby hunting over a lake and reed bed. To see one of these attractive falcons is always a treat, to have six flying around together, often just overhead, was amazing. The second noteworthy bird found at Lee Valley was Nightingale. I was fortunate enough to get a reasonable view of this very secretive bird, many of the group weren’t so lucky.

Rainham Marshes gave us the first taste of what the rest of the weekend’s weather would be like, it rained! Luckily I had my new birding coat with me (well, it was purchased with this weekend in mind) so the rain showers were only a minor irritation and didn’t stop us adding Little Egret, Cuckoo and Greenshank to our growing list of species seen. It was at Rainham that we also heard our first Marsh Frogs of the weekend, by the end of the weekend we were getting just a little tired of their non-stop croaking!

Hiding from yet another downpour!

Sunday morning saw us at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, a rather wet Rye Harbour! The rain here was heavier than the day before and the dry spells shorter. In between the downpours we did find some rather good birds though - Wheatear, Little Tern, Sandwich Tern, Sanderling, Avocet and Turnstone helped make the morning a success. The sight of around 20 Mediterranean Gull topped off a good morning's birding.

Possibly the only thing happy with the weather!

The beach at Rye Harbour.

Oystercatchers at Rye Harbour.

Sunday afternoon was spent at Dungeness RSPB Reserve. Once again, the weather tried its best to spoil things but, after a very wet start, the sun did finally come through and allowed us to enjoy this great reserve without being wrapped up in waterproofs. Of the birds seen here, the species added to the weekend list included Cetti’s Warbler, Marsh Harrier, White-fronted Goose, Red-crested Pochard and Whimbrel. It’s just a pity that, at times, you have to look at the nuclear power station in the distance!

The nice view at Dungeness.

The not so nice view at Dungeness.

Monday was our final day's birding and it was spent at Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve. It was also by far the wettest day of the weekend and, in fact, the wettest day's birding I’ve ever known! Thinking about it, it was the wettest day I’ve ever spent outside doing anything! The rain was almost non-stop and very heavy; my new coat kept the water out and my leggings just about managed to do the same. My boots are still drying out even now (the water didn’t quite get through those) and the shoulder strap on my telescope will be drying for days! Needless to say, we didn’t see too much here. Stock Dove was the only new species seen and the only real notable find of the day was the coach waiting for us at the end of a very wet afternoon!

Little Egret.

Just before the rain came down again.

Yet another downpour!

Hello!

An update of the weekend - Bluehorses gig and RSPB trip - will be here soon!

I was going to put something on here tonight but the stress of watching Derby County on TV has left me drained!

Derby County are now in the play-off final at Wembley after a 4 - 3 penalty shootout win over Southampton - now there’s a thing!

COME ON THE RAMS!

Evening!

Once again, I find myself looking forward rather than enjoying now.

Today was one of those classic motor trade days, the ones that leave you wondering just why you even bothered to get out of bed! If there was one job that went according to plan today, I must have missed it! Everything that could go wrong did, everything that should have happened didn’t, every small issue turned into a major crisis! Why have I put up with this for the past 25 years?

So, looking forward…

Tomorrow night it is the Bluehorses gig at The Flowerpot - a great night in prospect there!

On Saturday, we head off to Kent for a long weekend of bird watching, food and drink.

On May 19, we are going to see The Peatbog Faeries at a gig in Kinver, West Midlands. If anyone has the faintest idea where this is, please let me know!

IF Gary finally gets around to finishing the work on the roll cage in his race car, I will be at my first autograss meeting of the year on May 20. I’m not making any firm plans just yet though!

The Bank Holiday weekend, May 26 - 28, will see us over in Newark on the Saturday for the Newark Beer Festival. Contrary to popular belief, we are NOT going for the beer; we are going solely to see The Reasoning play! I have booked us into a hotel for the night though, just in case we decide to try a small glass or two of beer.

So, that is May taken care of, now I need to start looking at how to fill June.

Oh, one little bit of good news from today - the Derby Cathedral Peregrines have at least two young in the nest. The first of the chicks hatched late last night and by lunchtime today, it was confirmed that there were two chicks in the nest. You can follow their progress and find a link to the web cam at http://derbyperegrines.blogspot.com/

In true Bank Holiday style, it rained today, not exactly a downpour but at least it did rain. The gardens really could do with two or three days of constant rain but I’m not convinced we are going to get it - the clouds are already breaking up and the sun is trying to come through.

Before the rain did arrive this morning I managed to get a few hours of birding in - a trip to Ambaston Gravel Pits, Willington Gravel Pits and Etwall Farm.

Apart from just being out in the fresh air, the highlights were… Ringed and Little Ringed Plover; Common Tern; Cuckoo; Green Woodpecker; Great Spotted Woodpecker; Yellow Wagtail (3 superb males); Sedge Warbler; Common Whitethroat and, the best bird of the morning, a single male Garganey.

As usual, I took the camera out for a walk too…

"Waste ground" at Ambaston.

Dandelion clocks.

Hawthorn flowers.

A slightly out of focus Common Tern.

Bluebell flowers.

A Reed Bunting, trying to hide!

Next week...

Evening!

Not a lot going on again this past week, so I’ll look forward to next week instead…

• I really MUST get myself into the gym at least twice next week - I didn’t go at all last week, just didn’t feel like it.
  
  
• Having checked the weather forecast for the next few days (rain) it looks like the mountain bike will be staying at home and I’ll be in going to work in the car - another reason to get back to the gym.
  
  
• Next Friday sees the Bluehorses play their first gig of the year and it’s here in Derby. As usual, I’m really looking forward to this. It’s been almost five months since I last saw the Bluehorses live and that is way too long! Bring on Friday!
  
  
• On Saturday, we have an early start - it is the Derby RSPB Local Group annual long weekend birding trip. This year we are off to Kent for three days. At the moment, the weather forecast isn’t brilliant but hopefully that will either change or prove to be wrong. If not, then at least we’ll have the hotel bar to come back to each evening - the weather cannot stop that!
  

One last thing before I go - some while ago I heard the last little bit of a song on the radio and really enjoyed it. As is often the case when it finished the radio station didn’t say who it was or what the song was called! Damn, that frustrates me at times!

Well, after a bit of a search around the internet I finally tracked down the artist, the song and also a great little video of it. Have a listen; I’ve put the video below.

Christy Moore - Ride On.

Isn’t that just an awesome song?

The Reasoning...

Hello!

Another quick post this one - not quite sure what to write, and I'm also short of time, so most of it will be just photos!

The Limelight Club gig was a brilliant night out. We had no trouble with the traffic getting there, we didn’t get lost and the music was excellent!

Touchstone, a band new to me, started the night off with a pretty good set. They played mostly their own stuff with one or two cover versions thrown in for good measure. It was the lead singer’s first gig with the band and, although she did look a little nervous at times, she did a great job and her confidence grew from track to track. This is a band I’ll be keeping a look out for in the future and will definitely go and see again.

After a short break, it was time for The Reasoning. This was the first time I’d seen this band play live although I’ve been listening to a fair amount of their music via the internet. They were just amazing! Each and every track they played was just pure class. Now that they are out on the road, and playing gigs and festivals, this relatively new band are going to be making a big name for themselves. The Reasoning are a band that you’ll be reading much more about here and a good deal of other places over the coming months! Buy the CD, go see them live, you will not be disappointed!

After Thursday's gig, I am now pretty sure that I’ll not be at the Off The Tracks festival in May; I’ll be heading over to Newark to see The Reasoning instead!

Below are a few of the better photos I took on the night. They certainly are not my best photos ever! Not sure what the problem was but the lighting played havoc with the focus and exposure on the camera.

Mid-week update…

Work is a total pain in the butt this week! Nothing new there, apart from the pain is even bigger this week!

Two long bike rides into work so far this week - couldn’t use the bike yesterday as we went to the gym after work. Good workout, spoilt by having a large whisky when we got back home! Calories off - calories back on!

At the start of the week, I got the sudden urge to go to a gig this week! All the stress of work must have triggered that feeling! So, after checking a few websites, we are off to see The Reasoning play at The Limelight Club, in Crewe, tomorrow!

If we don’t get fog like we did for the birding trip last Saturday I MAY have some photos from the gig by the weekend!

Ta Ta!

The Titchwell trip went off okay, not great but okay. We arrived at the coach pick-up point in Derby at just before 7:00AM and the weather was a little bit iffy. It was a lot cooler than the past few mornings and, more worryingly, there was quiet a lot of fog around but at least it was dry so we couldn’t complain too much.

By the time the coach was ready to set off at 7:30AM the fog had cleared and we had also seen the first “good bird” of the day - one of the Peregrine Falcons that are nesting on Derby Cathedral had put in an appearance. The sunshine that had broken through as we left Derby soon disappeared again as we headed towards Nottingham! The next time we saw clear blue skies would prove to be after we left Titchwell to return home!

We arrived at the reserve at just after 11:00AM with visibility down to around 200 yards. Not the best of weather for birding but at least the fog was now patchy and not so thick that we couldn’t see anything. After a brief look around the visitor centre, we headed out onto the main reserve.

The scrub area around the freshwater marsh gave us our first migrant birds of the day - Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap and Swallow were all seen along with good views of a male Marsh Harrier, a pair of Ruddy Duck, a single Siskin and two pairs of Bullfinch. Cetti’s Warbler was also heard but even though there were at least two if not three birds calling, we couldn’t manage a sighting of these notoriously skulking birds.

An Avocet - in the fog!

The freshwater marsh itself held good numbers of Avocet, Shoveller, Oystercatcher, and Brent Geese. We also saw Ruff, Turnstone, Common Snipe, Lapwing, Dunlin, Redshank, Ringed Plover, and both Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwit amongst the waders. The “star bird” of the day was also located on the freshwater marsh, a single Little Gull. Okay, it wasn’t the best looking of Little Gulls, I would guess at it being a first or maybe second year bird, but on a dull and foggy spring day, it was great to come across this little gem!

The Little Gull - through the fog!

The last part of the reserve, before you walk into the sea, is the tidal marsh. Here the fog became quite thick again as it was blown in off the sea. We did manage to add one or two more birds to our day list though. There was a single Spotted Redshank, a few Grey Plover and two Little Egret.

The return walk back to the coach at the end of the day had one more surprise in store for us, a Cetti’s Warbler showed itself! It was at the side of the path, low down in some dead reeds, collecting what looked like nesting material. As soon as it saw us, it was up and way like a shot! It then had the cheek to start and call again once it was out of sight.

The foggy view over the freshwater marsh.

Once back at the coach the birding continued for a while longer. A superb male Wheatear had been located in a field next to the car park and, whilst watching that, a Barn Owl was seen hunting along the hedgerow! A great finish to a rather good days birding, despite the weather! Including birds seen from the coach during the trip to and from the reserve Lynda and I saw a total of 76 species.

Today, the sun came out all day! The sky was blue, there was little or no wind and the temperature was more like July than early April - what a difference a day makes!

Easter Weekend...

Yes, I know, it’s been ages since I updated this but I’ve not really had anything worth posting.

Last week was pretty quiet both at home and at work with little or nothing of note happening. The weather has been slowly but surely getting warmer and we’ve even had to water the garden a couple of times, as the ground is so dry.

The Autograss season is now fully underway but, as yet, I’ve not been to any meetings. Gary has not finished the work needed to bring his car up to 2007 spec. rules yet so it will be another few weeks before his car hits the track.

Biggest laugh of the week came at work… One of the salesmen tried to take the top down on a cabriolet we have for sale and got the electronic mechanism totally messed up! The end result was the roof stuck down and the boot lid stuck four feet up in the air! We sent him off back to his desk whilst we sorted everything out.

The jammed boot lid!

The Easter weekend was a quiet one for us. On Good Friday and Saturday, I had to work. On Sunday, I raked all the dead moss and grass from the lawns, and then mowed them; I dug the flower borders over and then washed the car. Lunch was a delicious roast turkey with all the trimmings - just like Christmas all over again! We even had a Christmas Pudding! Needless to say, we didn’t move far in the afternoon.

Yesterday, Bank Holiday Monday, I went out birding for a few hours at Willington Gravel Pits with Paul. We didn’t come across anything out of the ordinary bird wise - Sand Martin, Chiffchaff, Little Ringed Plover, Ruddy Duck, Wigeon and Common Buzzard being the highlights - but did get to watch a great fight for a nest hole between two male Great Spotted Woodpeckers! One of the birds had obviously laid claim to the hole and was quite happily going about removing debris from inside when along came another woodpecker that decided he would try to evict the first one. The fight that followed got to be quite nasty at times and also rather noisy; we left them to it with the bird that had first claimed the hole having the upper hand.

This weekend’s warm weather has seen quite a few butterflies taking to the wing. On Sunday, we had numerous Peacock and Small Whites in the garden and also a single Brimstone. On Monday, we came across more Peacocks at Willington along with two Orange Tips and one or two Speckled Woods. Later in the afternoon, we had another Speckled Wood in the garden at home. At last, some real signs of summer!

Today, I’ve been off work - time owed for working Good Friday - and I’ve spent much of the day sorting through well over 1000 photos on my PC! I’ve still not got them all in order, or transferred onto disk, but I’m getting there!

Is it the weekend yet?

Chiffchaff at Willington Gravel Pits.

Peacock butterfly at Willington Gravel pits.

Speckled Wood butterfly at Willington Gravel Pits.

The next photos show the second of the two male woodpeckers advancing on the nest hole.

This last photo is as far as the intruder got into the hole!

Not much going on but...

Here’s a quick run down of the week and it will be quick because not much has happened and I’m not really in the mood for sitting here typing loads of stuff tonight!

We hit the gym twice in the week and at last I’m fully back in the swing of things there - I’m actually enjoying it again and now look forward to going! Not felt like that for around 8 months or so! I’ve also managed to dump around 6 or 7 pounds of excess weight just by cutting out some of the rubbish I was eating. Not sure how long it will stay off though.

On Wednesday, I once again gave the neighbours good reason to think I have gone totally mad - I spent almost ¾ of an hour watering the lawns! Yes, I know it was still March and yes, I know it’s not been very hot but I wanted to roll the lawns to try and get rid of some of the humps and hollows that have developed over the past few years. When I tried rolling them last Saturday the ground was already too hard hence the watering!

The second part of the week had me watching my purchase figures at work like a hawk - it was the end of the first quarter this weekend and I needed to hit 100% of target so that we got a rebate back from Kia. We hit 100% on Thursday and, with a little bit of extra work and a very small piece of luck, we managed 105.3% by the month end. That last little push means that the rebate will now be more than double what it would have been.

Yesterday Lynda and I went into Derby in the morning. I needed a haircut, again, and we needed to do a little bit of shopping. All went off fine, Derby was pretty quiet, the weather was pleasant, if a little chilly, and I came home in one piece - just a pity I forgot half the stuff I went for! I hate shopping!

This morning I spent a few hours out and about birding. I checked three sites, all local to home and managed to add a few good birds to my year list - Sand Martin, Swallow, White-fronted Goose, Pink-footed Goose, Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover and Green Sandpiper. All common enough birds but good to see all the same.

So, that was last week. Now for a few photos from today.

Looking over the main pool at Willington

The newly created wader area at Willington.

A very friendly Robin that came to say hello!

There is plenty of Blackthorn in flower now.

A Dog Violet - I think!

Just a Dandelion, but from a bugs view!

Lesser Celandine - I hope!