Hugh’s News – 24 July 2020

It is great news that we have found a new and exciting location for our Indoor meetings.  It will be sad to part with Kingsmead after so many years but we are sure you will like the new premises at St. Bridget’s Centre.

Continuing on from Barry’s Badger saga, he has sent me a photo of him making friends with a Pelican on an overseas holiday.  Pam assures me that this photo is genuine, albeit from a few years ago!  I think this is a White Pelican, the slightly more common of the two species found in Europe, mostly around the eastern Mediterranean.  But it is still quite scarce, even there.  The other species is the even rarer Dalmatian Pelican. Also attached is a picture of two White Pelicans that Barry took on a trip to the Danube Delta a while back.

Barry had a small flock of young Long-tailed Tits on the fat-balls in his garden. Long-tailed Tits are very charismatic anyway, but I think the fluffy juveniles are even more cute.  You can see large flocks of these birds at this time of year consisting of combined family groups, foraging for food while enjoying safety in numbers from predators.

I woke up recently and saw a bird of prey on the neighbour’s garden trellis. From the size and colour it looked like a Peregrine Falcon, not a bird that normally frequents gardens. Sparrowhawks however will often perch in and around gardens, especially close to bird feeders looking for their next meal.  I eventually woke up properly and checked through my binoculars, and saw that it was indeed a Peregrine – but an ornamental one! Even now I know it is there, it still sometimes gets me going for a split second when I see it out of the corner of my eye!

Hugh Stewart