Sunday 27 February 2022

Beyond the Horizon - Bob Dylan Part III

 Having given Bob and Zep a fair crack of the whip across our humble

BUCHAN ALPHA
trilogy thus far, we thought it appropriate to clue it up with a riff of a similar nature from Pink Floyd.

High Hopes

as they always were:-

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young, in a world of magnets and miracles. Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary, the ringing of the division bell had begun!

YET ANOTHER 'FALL' OF MIGRANTS
WATER RAIL
which were only occassional.
and considered unusual a
MOORHEN
but nowhere as unexpected as this
BLACKBIRDS NEST

found in the manifold area with eggs 120 miles from land may have been a spoof by one of them there Roughnecks??

Rule Number One = You don't give The Hammer the run-around even if you do happen to be a

PEREGRINE FALCON
catching a
GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL 

on the Helicopter Safety Netting before catching a second in the Moon Pool                                   (the central square cut out of the centre of the rig through which the pipework runs to the seabed)

as most Rig Rats know that is my Part of Ship as well.
(a juvenile as wide as we are tall - and there's the distant Standby Boat the Far Seeker)
He soon had it in captivity, a make-shift cage knocked up and placed in the luggage compartment of
the next 'chopper - no travel docs or manifest required! While in 2005 we had no luck capturing or 'clicking' the only known
PALLAS'S WARBLER
to grace our decks

Eye-brow, crown-stripe and wing-bars in oppose to the many dozens of
YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER's
across the years. 

Along the long road and on down the Causeway, do they still meet there by the cut? There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps, running before time took their dreams away! Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground, to a life consumed by slow decay.

Pink Floyd from the album - The Division Bell

More night-time activity attracted to the Flare may have included this
Silver Y Moth
RED ADMIRAL
STARLINGs
scarce
PIED FLYCATCHER
THE HOVERFLIES
(Syrphus Ribsii)
and
REED BUNTINGs
but not the
PIPE-FISH
most likely Gull assisted? and unfortuneately, like many, many others a deceased male
REDSTART
and a final flurish of
SISKIN
TURTLE DOVE
and female
WIGEON
to name but a few.

 After my departure from the Buchan Alpha and the North Sea altogether, to persue further travels, Dave Penny confidently took over the reins adding

LAUGHING GULL

with photographic evidence and not surprisingly as
from the America's an addition to the North Sea
List,
along with a second

OSPREY
image from the archive as having lost the original.

until the unfortunate demise of the North Sea Bird Club - all that money swilling about in that industry and they couldn't sustain the club despite it being an integral part of Aberdeen Univercity??

and ending with something of an irony as it wasn't any of the crew that saw the last of Buchan, but Dave Foot who was Birding in the area of the
KISHORN BREAKERS YARD
and YES we are consumed by Rock 'n' Roll lyrics particularly when there is a subliminal message as attached,
which is why part of Zepellin's Kashmir is tattooed to the stern-sheets of our stately home.
With my Shipmate Jim the Medic we did step into Kashmir for a short while when travelling through and across India back in 2004, just for the craic and in recognitian of this song.