Lastnight Radio 4'sEddieMair toldus about Venus and Jupiter both being unusually close to the moon tonight.So we watched carefully until the clouds went and got a great view of this. Ju got the telescope out, and tried to focus on it, not an easy feat aboard a boat, but she succeeded.I knew there was no point trying to digiscope with the SLR camera, but on a whim I tried the compact digital, the Olympus Camedia. I missed Jupiter, but got the above shot of the moon and Venus through the telescope! Way to go!
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12/02/2008 | Donnie (don att dykefoot dott net)
Met a photographer parked in our drive way las evening who was trying to get a shot of this conjunction with some impressive kit on a tripod. Unfortunately the view to the moon was blocked by dramatic pink clouds although the rest of the sky was clear. "Just my Donald Duck", was his comment. The sunset was glorious - again!
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12/02/2008 | ali jarvis (alijarvis att btinternet dott com)
what a great night sky shot - well done. Loved the goldcrest too. In the heart of Glasgow we are inundated with goldfinches after offering nyjer seed to them. 14 on or around my feeder this am. keep up the blog it's good entertainment for freelance home-workers x
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12/04/2008 | Bev on Clemmy (alanbev att dialstart dott net)
Yes, its a great photo, much better than our attempt!
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A trip to Alvor had been on the cards for quite a while, as the grapevine had picked up that there was a Christian group there running a small charitable organisation which rings and tracks birds in their small 2 and a half acre plot, on the Alvor peninsula, a short ten-minute train ride from Lagos.
On Thursday morning then, I didn't go to the swimming pool for my customary workout but got on the train with Ju and two others from the marina, keen to see what the large nets had come up with this morning. We were armed with binoculars, telescope, and my camera, and I was determined to try digiscoping with it. That means using the telescope as the camera's lens, to get really faraway shots of shy wildlife.
The birder, a gentle character who reminded me of the gendarme in 'Allo 'Allo, finally turned up with around twenty birds fluttering in little drawstring cotton bags. These were carefully removed, one by one, measured, ringed (if not already ringed) weighed, blown on (to determine muscle quality and fat quantity on the bird, apparently) then it was popped beak-down into a film canister or suchlike on a tiny set of scales, for weighing. Fascinating! I had never seen this process up close before. The birds were mostly compliant, especially when upside-down in the container, although one did manage to reverse itself somehow back upwards and flew off just as Officer Crabtree had noted its weight!
The star of the show was the smallest, a goldcrest (pictured above). It weighed only 4 grams, or less than an ounce, and it had flown all the way from Sweden. All the bystanders crowded round and took photographs, while it posed proudly (see above). This was a bit better than the endless robins in the bags! No really, there were also blackcaps and other things, but I don't remember what they were.
Then we were served coffee and home-made cake, and left to our own devices on the 8 kilometre walk down to the estuary. We had a feast of birds to see, including an osprey, yes, an osprey, Caspian terns, flamingos, avocets, hoopoes, spoonbills and all sorts of other things. Do you know, I could get quite enthusiastic about this bird-watching lark, if it was always this good! We paused for lunch beside the flamingos, and got a mid-afternoon train home, while hoopoes flew by the station.
So that was this week's excitement. Otherwise we have been having a fairly quiet time, as the weather has turned unseasonably cold and windy and rainy. That hasn't stopped the local authorities here from covering the marina bridge and trees with Christmas lights, which are all on already! Plans are also afoot for not one but two Christmas dinners, and we have an invitation tomorrow night to go to a St Andrews' Night dinner. More anon.
Don't forget to have a look in the Photo gallery, where I have put some more bird pictures from Thursday.
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12/01/2008 | Donnie (don att dykefoot dott net)
Loved the bird pics. See your e-mails for details of our visit. Looking foward to hearing from you.
Don and Ann |
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12/01/2008 | Donnie (don att dykefoot dott net)
This afternoon our first sighting of a goldcrest. I wouldn't have recognised it if it hadn't been for your blog. This afternoon a goldcrest started to fly up to me and follow me around. It looked really agitated and kept flying up to a step we have made of paving stones and concrete blocks. I could see there was something wrong and so I lifted up one of the pavers. Another goldcrest flew out. It appears to have been trapped under there by last night's snow.
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12/01/2008 | Liz (lizmacinally att hotmail dott com)
Wow,Don, that's an amazing story, you should send it into one of the birding magazines! Our little fellow zoomed off from the birder's hand and settled in the nearest tree, and set about preening his mussed-up feathers, while posing for more photographs. Decidedly these birds are characters!
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So it's a week since we got back from Lisbon, and you'll be wondering what we've been up to since then.
Well, on Friday we had a trip aboard the 14th century Caravelle 'Boa Esperanca', or Good Hope, courtesy of the marina management. They set up two such trips, and we had been booked on this one for a while. Uniquely among marinas this one arranges nine free events for berth holders over their nine month rental period, so we joined in with a whole crowd of people for the day trip, which took us out of the river Bensafrim (boy was that fun, as we watched the master warp the vessel round in the river with a metre or so to spare, despite having waited for high tide in the first place. When the big Volvo engine that Vasco da Gama would have given his eye teeth for kicked in, the clouds of river mud stirred up into the water were a sight to behold!)
The crew consisted of about five people, and they kindly treated us (over 20 assorted Dutch, British and Swedish liveaboards) to cups of coffee, beer, wine, and a packed lunch during the trip. Winds were light as we headed for Portimao, so only the main sail was deployed, by a clever system of brailing lines which could raise or lower the sail from the deck. Nobody had to go aloft. Perhaps you can get the idea from the photos I have put on the gallery, and above. I had a go at helming the ship, using a huge tiller which you had to lean your whole body weight against to keep on course. And that was in calm weather! Plus the helming position is blind, so a lookout has to be posted on the deck above the helm, with a third crew member relaying the instructions by shouting. A noisy cumbersome process, especially when doing close manoeuvring, as in coming back into the pontoon at the end of the trip. A great day out, thank you Marina de Lagos!
On Saturday we had David and Sue round for dinner, and I spent most of the day making various curries. It was a good evening. Sunday was rather quiet.
On Monday morning I resumed my new fitness regime and headed for the swimming pool, completing my usual 40 lengths, or 1 kilometre, in about 50 minutes. We went into town and posted the fourth lifejacket back to Seago, who had recalled them for safety reasons. They have already replaced our other three with new ones.
On Tuesday Ju and I both went swimming, then I decided to try and fix the wandering wire on the bow light, which had proved impossible while we were on passage. Armed with a sail needle, some fishing line and a small trout fly, I lay on the foredeck with one arm down the anchor locker and the other teasing the fishing line out of the tiny hole in the pulpit, pulling the cable through the narrow pipes in the pulpit. Then, at the umpteenth attempt, and just when Ju announced that she could see the cable in the hole, my trusty fishing line snapped, leaving the cable short of the exit point. Getting wires and things into and through long narrow spaces on boats is called 'mousing', and my mouse was well and truly up the spout! We adjourned for lunch (pumpkin and leek soup, courtesy of Ju) for a think. I tried to make the hole bigger using our cordless drill, but the metal the pulpit is made of is far too hard for our drill bits. Ju went off into town shopping and I set to with brute force and ignorance, and a little wiliness thrown in. I tweaked the trout fly into the hole, impaled it on the cable, tugged the cable to the edge, and hauled it out with long-nosed pliers. A quick electrical job, and the bow light tested positive. Hoorah!
In the evening the city of Lagos laid on a free concert of music by the students of guitar at the local academy of music, and it was really good, a varied programme of pop, jazz, classical, south American and Portuguese traditional music. I enjoyed it very much, although it was all delivered in a very deadpan serious fashion, especially by the conductor, who would have made a Moss Bros dummy look agitated.
On Wednesday we trooped off to the bus station along with 30 other liveaboards, to get on a bus to Alfambra, where a walk had been organised by the Navigators' Net group. It was a very hard slog, up steep tracks and down one really severe hill in particular, where I grabbed a stout stick and used it to lean on as I descended. The leader had got the planning of the trip slightly wrong and was not sure of the route, so when we began to recognise the trees as we passed them a second time we realised that all was not as it should have been. When the call came to reverse up a steep and overgrown track as it had petered out below us, we finally stopped for lunch, and sat in the sunshine wondering what was coming next. The leader took a show of hands on whether we were bothered about waiting a further three hours for the next bus back, and we reluctantly said no. Then we walked fairly slowly back to the point we had set off from. As the long crocodile of people emerged from the hill the first group reached the café and had ordered drinks, while others were still on the track. Suddenly the bus we had all given up on arrived, and a brilliant process of delaying tactics were employed by the first group - now where's my ticket, I though I put it in this pocket......- while the rest of the group found energy from somewhere and ran for the bus stop. We were so relieved to get on the bus, it was amazing! We piled into Lazyjacks, our 'local' bar in the marina, and downed quantities of beer. Some hours later we turned out again for the quiz night in the West Bar, where our team came not first and not last, but not disgraced either.
Today, we went swimming again, and this afternoon on a trip to a local winery, again courtesy of the marina, who ferried us there in a minibus. Great winery, we have laid in a few bottles for special occasions.
So that has been our week.
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