Sunday 18th July 2021 - Sad News, On the Up, Mast Again, Gulls Hawking and Balloons

I heard from Wild Touch, the bat has died. Such a shame but I know they will have done the best they could for it. There was a delay in them responding to my enquiry as they are isolating, which no doubt means volunteers are not able to help at the centre, putting all the work tending and caring onto one couple and their two young children.

On the subject of isolating, cases of Covid are on the rise again. We heard this morning that two pubs, a food shop and two cafés/restaurants in Cromer had to close. They could be open again if the premises have been fogged or whatever needs to be done but it may well mean members of staff will need to isolate. Peter and I have made the decision to not eat out or go to any events until we see what the effects of releasing lockdown restrictions have on the number of cases.

On Thursday evening, there was a good turnout of villagers at the Parish Council meeting, including the local press. The Parish Councillors, voted to object to the application to erect at 5g mast at the corner of Cromer Road with Pauls Lane. More can be read in the EDP’s report The numbers of objections on NNDC’s website grow each day, reaching over seventy just before the weekend. However, it seems some villagers are unaware of the proposed location of the mast and to rectify this, I understand leaflets are being produced and will be distributed to homes.

There is a saying ‘you learn something every day’. We definitely learnt something yesterday. Sitting in the garden in the afternoon enjoying a mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit, Peter drew my attention to the numbers of gulls circling above ours and adjacent gardens. It looked as though they were catching insects. The question arose, do gulls eat insects, when we thought they mainly ate fish or other marine life. My comprehensive book of birds, confirmed these were little gulls (somewhat similar to black headed gulls) and that they hawk insects. There must have been a good number of, presumably blown in, insects as the gulls circled above us for quite a time. They did seem to be expending quite a lot of energy for such small portions of food.

As Barney has had an ear infection we have stayed off the beach, where he loves to rub his head and roll in the sand. This morning we took him down, keeping him on the lead. Initially, we had the beach to ourselves and were pleased to see there was little rubbish to pick up. There was however a trio of wedding balloons near the edge of the water. I don’t want to seem to be a spoil sport, balloons make a great decoration at any celebration, but care should be taken to dispose of them carefully and not to let them blow away. Peter burst the balloons and we took them off the beach and into a bin where they can’t pose a threat to marine life.