Saturday 11 March 2017

Days of Future Past - The Moody Blues

 (Full Album)
It's been a while!
1) The Day Begins - Reprise
2) Dawn: Dawn Is A Feeling (5:50)
3) The Morning: Another Morning (9:00)
4) Lunch Break: Peak Hour (12:55)
5) The Afternoon: Tuesday Afternoon (19:05)
6) Evening: The Sunset (27:33)
7) The Night: Nights in White Satin (34:12)
At long last we find time to catch up on the notable, but neglected, Birds of the last 13 days of last month along with another bit of news that some may find interesting? It is interesting to myself that Andy Hopper has now submitted his sculpture
 INTERSTELLAR MAJOR
for inclusion in this year's
Summer Exhibition
at the 
Royal Academy of Arts London
 Andy describes himself as a Blacksmith, but get into conversation and some way into the mind of the man,
you quickly realise there is much more to the man than simply that.
Having been a member of the RA for a little over 20 years myself, and didn't miss a major exhibition over an 18 year period (1993 and 2011), all Art is of value to me.
In exactly the same way as Music, my belief is there is no such thing as 'rubbish'
as far as this or the Visual Image is concerned - more a case of
We Just Ain't Got It Yet!
(Although listening to some of the more resent offerings we do sometimes wonder,
but that's just what my Dad and his Dad, recurring, said!)
A couple of offerings from the Moth Traps with little excitement
COMMON QUAKER and HEBREW CHARACTER
As far as the Birds are concerned it goes back as far as Wednesday 15 February inst
when setting course for Portland in the hope of at least seeing a
PEREGRINE,
among other things, this quickly became a case of
The Mountain Coming to Mohamed,
rather than the other way about, as one flew overhead even before we
cleared the Recording Area.
Definitely taken as a 'good omen' we continued with the venture and by day's end we had added
 BLACK REDSTART
 to the Dorset List,
 the diminutive (size of a Goldcrest) and not very obliging
 HUME'S LEAF WARBLER
 to the Year List as was the case
 with a
GOSHAWK
on our way back to Slight Return II.
The following day again we sallied forth, but by no means as far,
just the 15 minutes to the village of Corfe Mullen to add
WAXWING
to the County Total.
Friday 17th a dark, dank and dismal day including scattered showers was
another off-piste, this time just over the Hampshire border no more than a 15 minute drive away.
Blashford Lakes
produced a
RING-BILLED GULL
 along with c2

YELLOW-LEGGED GULL
both of which were hardly viewable let alone photogenic
(but both additions for the year)
so these images have been taken from the archive.
A lot closer to the hide a pair of
GOLDENEYE
were strutting their stuff
Female and the Male displaying.
 Female
 Male displaying again.
From there it was a drive through the
New Forest
to the
Rhinefield Ornamental Drive
and the connecting
Blackwater Arboretum.
 

 
where we were to find
HAWFINCH
for the year
but only c2 at that!
Mighty Trees
The following day we headed back to the quaint village of
ABBOTSBURY
taking in the
TITHE BARN
SAINT CATHERINE'S CHAPEL
and the view across the bay which forms part of the World famous
ABBOTSBURY SWANNERY
and also managed to locate the c2
 RICHARD'S PIPIT
Later on that day just a single
COMMON SCOTER 
was seen flying past Portland Bill while c2
 SLAVONIAN GREBE
and an
EIDER
were noted close to Sandsfoot Castle on the northern shore of
Portland Harbour.
Starting our return journey, at
OAKERS WOOD
there was a brief encounter with Roger Hewitt, a birding friend of many years,
who had seen a
LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER
just a short time before my own encounter.
Plenty of
CATKINS
in bloom while
WOODLARK
also made it onto the Year List.
High on the top cross-member of an electricity pylon a female
Raven appeared to be incubating eggs, while in the thick of the wood
MARSH TIT
an addition to the County List and
SISKIN
among others were feeding.
FOOTNOTE - Here at The Bagsy Blog we shy away from advertising, in almost every one of it's forms, but as we have said before there is always that 'exception to the rule'! Once you have viewed this video you may even consider sticking a 'shilling' in the box, but why oh why is it so important to so many to humanise any wild creature with a name - 'call them what they are'!
 A THOUSAND THANKS TO WILLY (The Whale) WINE!
Yes, we remembered Willy - PINK!
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