A WINTER'S TALE - David Essex

 Sub-Title

‘Winter Drawers On'

If the weather conditions in your part of Dorset don’t appear to coincide with our own it is once again that we have fallen behind by a day or 3 but still the Moths prevail!

RED-GREEN CARPET
and

SILVER Y
  In the wider world, search as we may elsewhere, all of the action was contained along the Sewerage Works fence or in the close environs starting at the former with signs of a

decent 'fall'

of

CHIFFCHAFF

while in the same hedge both sexes of (male above)

GOLCREST
It was a move to the nearby Solar Compound Fence

that a couple of still juvenile looking

or maybe more northern

STONECHAT
were found,
while returning to the Works the Piece de Resistance

FIRECREST

was located, which may have been the putative bird of a few days ago? but whichever
If This Is Winter, Bring It On!

Strange Phenomena - Kate Bush

The predicted Heralds of Winter became nothing more than a damp squib as the 40 - 45 knots of nor'westerlies showed as no more than a light zephyr, a 10 minute cloud burst at 03:00 substituted for the so called continuous overnight rain as the temperature hung on doggedly to double figures, +12°C, to be precise.

13% Waning Crescent

Soon it will be the phase of the moon when people tune in.
Every girl knows about the punctual blues,
but who's to know the power behind our moves?

A day of coincidence with the radio,
and a word that won't go away.
We know what they're all gonna say,
"G arrives, funny, had a feeling he was on his way"

  We need not have worried about being short changed by the lack of inclement weather as it arrived, wind, rain and all, at dawn depriving us of visiting the Moth Traps, early doors, in hopes of confirming the capture of at least one Insect across every month of the year? However, the wait was not all doom and gloom as roundly entertained by an

unusually large and vocal flock of

HOUSE SPARROWs
here's one we caught some time ago.

First of the Month, First of the Winter, from the First Trap on the First egg tray a brace of

DECEMBER MOTHs

RED-LINE QUAKER
and quite unexpectedly, but well within season

only our second ever

SPRAWLER
nicely contributing to having caught one or more Moths in each month of 2021.
Among the furor and excitement of all that enough on show across our plot

to pad out another Post with the likes of

GREEN WOODPECKER

Some 3 to 400

WOOD PIGEONs
still capitalising on the Maize stubble.

There were also familiar yelps from above

of maybe a 10 - 12 strong tribe of

MEDITERRANEAN GULLs
flying inland, with images from the archive, while a

TREECREEPER

busied itself among the Oaks

along with the first sighting here ever of a most rowdy

WATER RAIL
Considering we had seen the best of the day we returned to Base where we found the game was not yet quite over with a

WHITE-TAILED BUMBLEBEE
still creeping around inside one of the Moth Traps along with a most compelling text from Ian the Green Keeper which we will save for another day after we have proven and/or sorted the matter out.

You hear your sister calling for you, but you don't know where from.
You know there's something wrong,
but you don't want to believe in a premonition!

We raise our hats to the Strange Phenomena,
Soul-birds of a feather flock together!

We raise out hats to the hand a-moulding us, sure ‘nuff,

He has the answer, He has the answer - Om Mani Padme

 There is a rather ribald or risqué term in the Royal Naval Dictionary to describe our LOVE for Kate Bush, the finest and most sensual female singer / songwriter in the world, but maybe not for this tome? My only ‘brief encounter’ with that wonderfully talented lady was at the Royal Festival Hall - South Bank when David Gilmour, Pink Floyd was promoting his latest album ‘On An Island’. Stepping up to the microphone part way through he announced that the next number would be little known to almost all of the audience, also admitting that his singing voice was getting a little croaky so asked us all to welcome Kate Bush to the stage to perform ‘Comfortably Numb’, uncontrollable, and just wished we had shares in Kleenex!  

Bye Baby Bunting - Nursery Rhyme

 

When we made the polite request to alert your Friends and Families to our humble Daily Ditty's, we did so a little tongue in cheek as feeling that most, if not all, had alreday done so. Seems not as Tuesday's MAGICAL 2,769 hits were blown right out of the water by this mornings UNBELIEVABLE count of 9,101. Whoever you are, we thank you wholeheartedly while the Pimms and Pint at the Red Lion Bristol have been replaced by a bottle of 2001 Chateau 'd Yquem! Keep up the Good Work Please and Thanks again. 

While overnight temperatures have, by and large, been low it hasn’t all been

frost and ice in fact we logged a balmy +6°C across one period of darkness bringing with it a couple of most welcome ‘migrants’.

WHITE-SPECK

along with

the usually far more numerous

DARK SWORD-GRASS
As if that were not fillip enough we headed north to find a full trio of

GREEN SANDPIPER

at the Gravel Pit

which more or less immediately

took to the wing with only this single returning for a

Photo Shoot

while the hour on the Heath found not a single grounded bird

but a bonus look at the irreststable

bare
ASPENs and BIRCHs

ESCAPEE BELTED GALLOWAYs
which it would seem, after a few weeks now, the Herdsman has not missed and the now moth-balled

Moth Monitoring Station.
Considered fortuitous, as we wouldn't usually cover the same ground twice,

a return to the
Gravel Pit

turned up this

REED BUNTING
which most unusually is the first, and likely last, of the rapidly disappearing
AUTUMN!