Monday 7th October 2024 - Better Now, Four Times and Bird of Prey

After a windy and wet start to the month, we are now enjoying sun and better temperatures.  The sunrises have continued to give the ‘wow’ factor and a cheeky gull is around most mornings.  As we approach the zigzag path, down to the beach, it has been asking for food.  It’s rather noisy in its requests, or should I say demands, for breakfast, either perching on the railings or the sign post.  I quite often drop it some bread, leaving the rest to throw to other gulls, once we are down on the promenade.  In the past, I have given gulls, who are regulars and show character, a name.  There is a type of gull called glaucous gull, I think I will call this one raucous gull.  I took a phot of raucous gull, the other morning, just before the sun rose and have included this below.

There is a saying, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’.  This certainly applies to me and filming a walk up to Northrepps, for my YouTube channel.  I have been wanting to do this but after four attempts, down to one thing or another, I have yet to succeed.  Saturday afternoon was perfect for videoing this walk.  We set off up the path from the allotments which takes you to Tolls Hill.  I had quite a lot to say as I walked along and decided to stop at the top of the gradient, where the path opens up onto a field and check what I had filmed so far - there was no footage.  Not the camcorder at fault but me!  So, you now know why I haven’t posted a video for a while but I will continue to persevere and one day I will surely succeed.

Sitting in our conservatory, eating lunch today, I spotted a bird sitting on top of our neighbour’s hedge. We see birds of prey on our walks and above the cliffs but this was a first for our garden.  I stopped eating lunch and trained our binoculars on the bird, following this with some photos and a thumb through our bird book before deciding it was a sparrowhawk. Before recording this here, I sent a photo to one of our village bird watchers and yes, it’s a sparrowhawk and a juvenile.   The photo below was taken on high zoom and has been cropped to better show the bird.