Before
we start on today's happenings, a hark back to Friday evening when
friend and fellow birder Bob Ford found this distinctly rare
GULL-BILLED
TERN on Lodmoor. An excellent find Bob, would like to have seen it but
you never get them all. Photographs are © Martin Cade, Warden of the
Portland Bird Observatory PBO Latest News.
Looking
through the curtains first thing this morning there was already a good
deal of brightness, but arriving at the cemetery dark clouds were
building along with a rumble of thunder or two. Undeterred, it was
onward to Westham Bridge and past the new retaining walls that were
built last year,
which
are now a carpet of wild flowers. I carn't believe these are all self
setters, so maybe our Council Gardeners (the best department in the
Borough) have chucked in a couple of packets of seed?
Approaching Ferry Bridge there was this small but beautiful clump of BITING STONECROP,
Portland proper was once again very quiet, with a single SMALL TORTOISESHELL BUTTERFLY,
Odemera nobilis male, at least that's what is says in the Field Guide and plenty of them around.
Later joined by one of the Plant Hoppers (Centrotus cornutus?),
and
the PORTLAND 10 MILE ROAD RACE just about at its half way stage. As the
runners passed me at the Avalanche bus stop, this was the leader behind
the safety vehicle,
while in second place and some 90 seconds behind, I have it on good authority that this is our friend Mike Munroe's nephew.
In 5th place and only 2 minutes adrift was the first lady competitor, all of whom would have been aware that
the 'Drinks Station' was only just around the next bend, and strategically placed right outside the 8 Kings Public House.
By now I was being afforded a lift by Ricky Lambert and able to take shots of the rest of the field.
At
home I was delighted to watch a couple of families of newly fledged
HOUSE SPARROWs that had already learned to 'steal' water out of my
garden pond, but the air rifle should fix that, I'm not made of money
and the water bill is due!!!!
I could have watched these cheeky little birds for the rest of the day.
Chief Engineer of the Technips owned Deep Constructor. She is a
powerful deepwater pipelay vessel (flexible
pipe and umbilical's) and a multi-purpose subsea construction vessel
capable of working virtually anywhere in the world. Currently 'working'
(ay hang on a minute) in deep water off the coast of Brazil, there was a
need for the ship to return toVitoria where he met up with another of
our old 'shipmates' Paul 'Half-height' Boulton, who he or I haven't seen
for 18 years. The 3 of us had enjoyed some good times together on the
Semi-submersible Drilling Rig Stena Hunter back in the 90's. Paul now
lives in Brazil and owns a bar in the town.
It may be the only opportunity in your life to see this event, so here are the times of local runs.
Olympic Torch Link Portland and Weymouth Timetable
As
we come to the end of June 2012, it's worth looking at the Stat Counter
where the daily readership total has taken something of a dip but in
all other areas numbers have increased. 2 new countries/regions, Haiti
and New Caledonia, joined during the month, taking the grand total to
171 as UK races towards the 60,000 milestone, with the USA and Canada
now firmly into 4 figures. A further 43 are now in treble figures with
Ukraine and Bulgaria both crossing the threshold during the last week,
leaving Vietnam teetering. It is staggering, and rewarding to think of
the corners of the world we are reaching along with an enormous number
of people. A huge Thank You is extended to each and every one, with the
hope you might pass on the LINK to your Families, Friends, Facebook,
Twitter etc addressees.
Country | State/Region | City | ISP
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