It was not the most obvious morning for birdwatching. This was the view from a hide at the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust's Welney reserve, a bit north of Ely this morning:
The grey haze is due to rain. But on that island there were 150+ black tailed godwit, several redshank, a dunlin, a couple of snipe and lapwing galore. Around it were Canada geese, a greylag or two, one hundred or more teal and fair numbers of wigeon, pochard and mallard and a few shoveler. Great white and little egret were about, as were a heron and a curlew, whilst the occasional marsh harrier duly delivered murmurations of teal, lapwing and godwit. Who cares about the rain in that case?
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Hi Richard; a march harrier? A rare sighting indeed… especially in October. Better dust-off the old spell chequer when you return to the warmth of home. Despite the inclement weather, I hope you have an enjoyable weekend away from blogging about political economy et al. Having a hinterland is all important to retaining a balanced view on life.
🙂
Corrected
I should not blog on an iPad
Dunlin or Dublin?
Pleased you got back okay.
There were 8 metre high waves at South Shields which knocked the cap off the lighthouse. Desipte that there were some idiots kite-surfing and swimming at Tynemouth. Had to send the lifeboat out to them.
Rothbury had to be evaccuated yesterday because the Coquet burst its banks.
Hate to think what York was like. We lived there for 10 years, and had 4 hundred year floods in that ten years. They’ve had a few more since.
Bloody autocorrect…
Dunlin, of course.
And, re the flooding…grim. Now when will the gobvernment take such issues seriously?
Yesterday I had to travel from Cardiff to Liverpool for a meeting that unfortunately couldn’t be delayed. I got to Liverpool at about 12, only about 75 minutes later than scheduled and with only Merseyrail service from Chester to Liverpool cancelled, but with replacement buses provided.
But the way back! I started at two from Lime Street and got to Crew on time. All the trains from Crew to Cardiff (and most other places) were cancelled. A friendly lady at the ticket office told me to take a train to Tamworth and then to go to Cardiff from there.
The first train to Tamworth was cancelled, but second departed almost on time. It took the train an hour and half for a 45-minute journey. When I got to Tamworth all the trains from there to Cardiff were cancelled as well.
There was a train to London Euston in about an hour, so I thought I’d go to London and take the train to Cardiff from Paddington. While I was checking it of all the trains from London to Cardiff changed from delayed to cancelled. Then I bought a coach ticket from Victoria to Cardiff. Just as I payed it the Tamworth display changed and the trains to Euston were cancelled as well.
Someone who had something to do with the railway then came to the waiting room and said that a train is coming and that that might be the last train that day. Everyone boarded it, myself included, and as it said Birmingham New Street on the train I assumed that was were the train was going. But the train was going to Derby – they just forgot to change the display.
I got to Derby and found out that all the trains were cancelled. There was a lady on the platform who started at 4 in Edinburgh because her mother in Southampton had died and she started crying. With all the cancellations she had to change 9 trains yesterday and ended up in Derby in the end. Then someone from the railway station came and said that there were going to send a train to Birmingham providing they find a driver, but that they can’t promise that we’ll get there.
We boarded this train, and after about 45 minutes they found a driver and we left.
We came to Birmingham New Street two hours later and I booked a coach ticket to Cardiff scheduled for two hours later as all the trains to Cardiff or Bristol were cancelled. Coach was only 45 minutes late and I did in the end get back to Cardiff at about three in the morning.
Moral of the story 1 – go bird-watching and don’t travel when it rains
Moral of the story 2 – never ever take trains when it rains – take a coach – they seem to never get cancelled
That’s grim
I had a very delayed return from Edinburgh, but nothing like that
Derby is in a mess – I work there and we were sent home Friday afternoon. I’ve no idea yet whether I can go to work on Monday either – the local rail lines are subject to delays because cancelled trains mean that drivers/guards and rolling stock are all in the wrong place. The recent flood barrier works (still ongoing) will come under scrutiny I’m sure but the levels the town endured in 2019 have been topped this year.
The railways are now operated by accountants, the rolling stock operated by leasing companies so everything is using the ‘just in time’ system from industry where nothing is kept on the shelf and everything is being maximised. There is no redundancy in a ‘just in time’ system – no spare rolling stock, no spare staff, no relief trains – it’s a railway portioned out and ran to maximise profit to rentiers and not provide a service in case something goes wrong.
You are right
Railways always built in spare capacity
It was a service ethic to do so
That has gone
67% of the public think rail should be in public ownership, yet only 17,000+ have signed this to say so. Last signature 4 days ago.
https://weownit.org.uk/our-public-services/railways
Please sign and spread as far as you can.
Done
On Wednesday we must have witnessed several thousand geese fly over us here in Tollarp near Kristiabstad in Southern Sweden. Clear blue skies and light white cloud with constant bees of birds all day. The bird app I use recognised the calls of grey lag and barnacle geese, but they were very high up. I hope they made safe landings before they met Babette.
I hope so too.
Migration is a really big risk for geese.
Research in the Netherlands shows that more than 40% that migrate can die each winter. Of those that stay put, more than 90% survive. There appears to be adaptive behaviour in favour of staying put developing, with staying put meaning not going north for the summer.
That reluctance to migrate has been evident for many years in the Hebrides: increasing numbers stay behind each year, which results in problems for farmers. As a consequence annual culls are authorised to minimise damage to crops and land while leaving a sustainable goose population, known as feral geese. The wee island of Colonsay has its own unique migratory bird. A colony of chuffs spend the summer on the cliffs and beaches at the north end of the island, but, as the north end is open to northerly winter winds and storms, the chuffs migrate a mighty 8 miles to the south of the island for the winter. There is ample feeding on the Strand (which dries out at low tide) between Colonsay and the neighbouring island of Oronsay to see the colony through the winter, before their return to the north end in the spring.
Wow: I love chuffs. Beautiful corvids.