and The Wind Cries Mary - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

 The pre-dawn indications were that there had been a fair amount of Aircraft activity across the early morning sky, turning our attention to the classic Pink Floyd track

 Above the planet on a wing and a prayer,
my grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air.
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly, out of the corner of my watering eye.

A dream unthreatened by the morning light,
could blow this soul right through the roof of the night.

Learning to Fly from the album - A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

 It had been touch and go the previous evening as to whether we would flash up the Moth Traps, but in the event maybe a good job we did. Not a lot to sort through but from what there was came a rather late

BEAUTIFUL HOOK-TIP

but advised by our 'mentor' that this was not a unique record.

Additionally, and even more rewarding, came the 'first for year'

DEEP-BROWN DART
emphasising it is usually best to give it a go rather than miss a goodie!
Otherwise we thought we might have had the best of it as all else on offer seemed to be this

MULLEIN

having weaved its way through the Solar Panel Fencing, another

FOX MOTH LARVA
there seems to be a plague of them weaving its way through the rabbit droppings and a rather

camera-shy

ROE BUCK

that did eventially show more of itself.
Home, and with coffee in hand while enjoing once again the frolickings of a local

while enjoying once again

the frolickings

of one of the local

PIED WAGTAILs
until the noise from above sounded as if the heavens were falling in on us.
Not a bit of it as Once Again it was the

RED ARROWS

and having seen so much of them over the years and more recently the word
passé
was about to come to mind until this happened...........

Up, Up and Away!

BOMB-BURST
you will notice the aircraft straddling each side of the caravan in their decent!

This, we learn from good authority, is to be part of the rejuvinated

Isle of Wight Rock Festival
of which we attended all 3 days of the very first back in 1969, with the last act resulting in the worst 'miss' of my life!

A SUBMARINER
back in those heady days my only dream was to see my all time 'Hero' perform as the final act on that final day, but he and The Experience, his band, with Noel Reading on bass guitar and Mitch Mitchell on drums, were delayed. Sailing at 05:00 under the cover of dark, as submarines do, (H. M. S/M Alcide) as we boarded the ferry to return to Portsmouth Jimi Hendrix and his pals flew directly overhead in a helicopter which might have been the nearest I was to get to the man had it not been for my determination.

A watercolour painted for me as a gift on my 50th birthday of Jimi as seen on the I. of W.
It was on a gloomy day during Jnne of 2011 that as part of a wider adventure that the dream was fulfilled and not only that these 2 lovely people

Colin and Rosemary
not only paid for the short rail journey from Seattle to

but then drove me to the deserted

GREENWOOD CEMETARY

where the dream of paying respect to my man, James Marshall Hendrix, was finally fulfilled! 

There's no sensation to compare with this,
suspended animation, a state of bliss.
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky,
tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I

Pribilof Islands - Part IV

 Returning to the Island of St Paul as part of the Pribilof group in the Bering Sea for the

4th and final part of our visit, the map may give a better idea of just how remote these outposts are!

On that final day we headed for the sea-cliffs and more particularly the

Bird Colony's with

TUFTED PUFFIN

crowding the ledges with the occassional

HARBOUR SEAL
hauling itself across the rocky shore-line, and ledges crammed

with many 'THOUSANDS' of
BRUNNICH'S GUILLEMOT

which we had seen across the Westerman Islands in Iceland year's before
and what the Americans call Thick-billed Murres.

What a surprise then when this individual turned up in

PORTLAND HARBOUR, DORSET
in the winter of 2013 which was an extreme 'crowd-pleaser'!

Distant view of Saint Paul's Island

RED-FACED CORMORANT

PARAKEET AUKLET

along with

HORNED PUFFIN
In all of that at at lower altitude

pockets

of the delightful (juvenile)

ROCK SANDPIPER
but only a single

SABINE'S GULL
across the whole visit, while we feel it only fitting to end with that glorious

RED-LEGGED KITTIWAKE

DON'T LET YOU ABSENT ADRESSEES MISS THIS POST!

Delicate Sound of Thunder - Pink Floyd

 While over the last 2 or 3 weeks we have been inundated by both

HAWTHORN SHIELDBUG
and

RED-LEGGED SHIELDBUG
alike, as has been seen we have also had a decent run of luck with Moths 'first for the year' which continued, despite the sugestion of a deluge with an eye-catching and migrant

DELICATE

which looks as the name suggests.
While shying away from the myriade of Micro Moths, every now and again one will pass our eye and stimulate the need to find out what it is - hoping of course that we have got it right

EVERGESTIS LIMBATA
is the absolute 'cracker' with all of this taking place on a darkish morning.
Reason then why we only resorted to a short video clip mostly for the vocals of a nearby

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER
while in a quite different direction we have always considered

DWARF GORSE

to be something of a scarce plant here but now popping up all over the Heath.

Amongst that we also found another

FOX MOTH LARVA
Things turned a little more macabre in the Solar Panel Compoud as we happened upon

a 'murder' of no fewer than c15, a minor phenomena in itself,

MAGPIE's

all jockying for position around the 5th dead

RABBIT
of the week while the once ripe

PUFFBALLs

have all but turned to dust
with finally yet more

STARLINGs

on the Farm House roof and

LAWN.