Winter Thrushes on the Bicycle

I'm writing this while listening to "Starless"  by King Crimson which is an awesome piece of music...

So after an exhausted day of nothing yesterday - My Black Friday duties totally wiped me out - I decided I needed to make a good go at today, cold or not.

So in the morning I made my way to  the park for a cup of tea on my trusty Rockrider, and then in the afternoon managed to get out for a sunset 25km ride, with a gentle breeze it seemed like a bloody nice thing  to  do.

And I worry I'll get very fat indeed if I don't do it.

So out I went along the cycle path with the low sun lighting up the turbines of the wind farm and reflecting off the solar panel plant. It even made the rubbish tip glow in gold. Rather oddly I thought, the gulls and crows feasting  off the rubbish were flushed by my presence from about 100 metres away, silly feathery things!

It was on this cycle path that I saw my first winter thrushes of the year, flushed from the berry laden hawthorns alongside. Trouble is, with the sun behind them they just looked like black shapes, until they flew past me and I caught a glimpse of pale bellies and grey rumps; fieldfares.

Odd that I should see fieldfare before redwing. Normally the latter are easier to come across just outside of  town in early winter.

So I kept on riding as the sun set, and re-murmarised a flock of about 50 starling who thought they were going to have a peaceful roost in a tree next to the road to Thorpe village.

It was a good ride, and I took a bit of pride in myself for  doing it.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.11.18

Tour De Rubbish Tip

I had a very gentle run last night, 6km, and although it went ok at the time, it was a bit sore afterwards so I decided to stay off it today and go for a bike ride.

It ended up being a very short bike ride, a mere ten miles, because during them time it took me to eat my lunch, and get out there and pump the tires up, the wind suddenly got up and veered around to the north west. As soon as I was out of the protection of buildings, it turned out that my preferred route was going to have the wind hindering me virtually all the way.

So I decided to just make it short, rather than a 25 mile job.

Still it was good exercise, I was able to ride safely on the cycle track, and a wind from that direction meant I wasn't exposed to the full vomity miasma of Cotham rubbish tip.

Bizarrely, this is a popular spot for birdwatchers due to the huge numbers of gulls it attracts over the winter months - amidst the thousand plus herring and black headed gulls there's occasionally a glaucous or iceland gull, rare visitors from the arctic circle.

Somehow these "gullers" are able to pick out these different birds at a range of 400 metres through a spotting scope, something I'd never be able to do.

The official graffiti artists have also made it out this far. Virtually all the bridges along the cycle track are now colourfully decorated. Rather cheerful.

See what tomorrow brings!

Si

The Egret and the Rubbish Tip

Today, I decided to rest my achey legs, and with bright skies and no wind for once, I thought it might be good to jump on the bike and go somewhere.

I decided to go the long way round - the endless blockage to the Sustrans 64 is really annoying everyone - and ride to Cotham rubbish tip. What I was after were some shots of the huge numbers of gulls that are often found there, gulls that experienced birdwatchers of my acquaintance are able to identify at a range of 200 metres, when there are thousands of them.

A juvenile glaucous gull, seemingly the size of a turkey, has had a lot of attention there lately.

Sadly, there weren't many gulls on view today, as it turned out they were all hiding on the other side of the ridge. But I could still see a few greater black backed gulls mooching around, and there were plenty of rooks looking on, perched on the fences and the edge of the tip "crater".

But not, on the whole, a pretty place.

So I carried on cycling, on my Cotham - Thorpe - Home route, and was just crossing over one of the numerous small rivers you find around here - this one was the oddly named Car Dyke, which flows into the Devon - when a beautiful white bird caught my attention and made me stand on my brakes.

It was a gorgeous egret, barely 15 metres away, standing on the edge of the water.

I approached oh so slowly, oh so stealthily, with my camera, but the bird still sensed my approach and took off with its mate. Pah, an egret at that range would have made for a stunning photograph!

Still a gorgeous bird though. But a pesky one!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.02.16

Kestrel bird scarer

Crows on a wire

Crows on a mountain

Crows on a crater

Digger

Two diggers

Greater black backed gull

More gulls

Echelon gulls

Egrets in flight