24th January 2022 Long ride from Ellesmere to Aqualate Mere.

 

Alex the Acorn and friends

Donations : Acorns

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/GaryPrescott2022 

Many thanks to . . . 

Moira, Jackie Griffiths, Bob, Keep U, Rosie, Jayne Grosvenor, Jane & Andy Revell, Louise, Stuart Griffiths, M & D Shaw, Dave & Sue White, Janette Lowndes, Bart, Lise Hanson, Maria Hill, Phil V, Chris Elmer, Sue Murphy, Nicky, John Hague, Mike, Kimberley Bills, Norma Hines, Rob Gilbert, Julia, Colin Graham, Sarah Moreton, Lizzy, Lisa Hillier, Rob Leech, &P. 

Acorns Children's Hospice 

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Donations : RSPB

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/bikingbirdervii-2022 

Many thanks to . . . 

Moira, Jill from Dorking, Nicky M, Terri Akers, Anne Beckett, Maria Hill, Mark Carter, P.

24th January 2022      Long ride to Aqualate Mere

          Post breakfast, I am off on the road once more and with Siri/Google Maps help I easily find my way.

       A line of plastic gulls on a 5-bar gate stop me and the owner of them comes outside to explain why he has them. "Make 'em laugh, Make 'em laugh."

          I told him that his Gulls, Penguin and Sheep remind me of a garden I saw when cycling around Northern Ireland back in 2015. That garden, on the west side of Loch Erne, had zombies coming out of the lawn. It had gravestones dotted around. It was FANTASTIC, as were the couple who's garden it was. I remember that they were from Middlesborough originally. Coffee, biscuits and explanations were enjoyed with this lovely couple. The kindness of strangers.

          As I cycle mile after mile I sing. Actually I have a laugh making up new lyrics for old songs and all to concerning topical issues involving parties!

          I stop occasionally to photograph the wind vanes I notice. The last one brings further memories from my childhood. Samantha!

          In the mid-afternoon, after cycling for over thirty miles, I arrive at Aqualate Mere and after an interesting conversation with a Jehovah Witness who wanted to convert me, I loved how he left saying that he wasn't going to give me one of cards that he usually gives out, and have the rest of the daylight hour or so to myself in the bird hide there.

            I may have managed to photograph this Great Spotted Woodpecker but I kissed the ultra-quick attack by a Sparrowhawk on a Blue Tit at the feeder two metres from me. Incredibly skilled, the Sparrowhawk left with his meal.

This photograph of a Sparrowhawk I took during the Biking Birder II adventure back in 2015.

Charity Pledges 

These are the names of people who have made a pledge to pay so much per bird species seen at the end of the year to either one of the charities I am supporting or to both.

Lee Dark, Mary & Brian Prescott, Joshua Prescott, Rebecca Prescott and Les Oxley-Stoker, Donna Prescott. 

Massive thanks to everyone who has either made a donation or made a pledge.

                           Wonderful.

If anyone would like to make a pledge, say 1p for every bird specie I see this year, with the thought that I think I will see around 280-90 different species, then please message me. It would be fabulous to hear from you. Thanks.

Biking Birder I - 2010     Hamish!

          Continuing with remembering some of the amazing people I have met on previous Biking Birder adventures, I will always remember the day I broke down, well the bike did, outside RSPB Fore Wood, south of Battle in Sussex.

           A lovely couple came out from an adjacent bungalow and asked whether I required help. Hence I meet Jim Lawrence and his wife.

          They put me up for the night and the evening is spent with Jim showing me memorabilia of his career as a Manchester City footballer in the 1950s and as a football coach for the England football team under the manager Walter Winterbottom.

          Maybe the evening crescendo was on the production of two World Cup Final 1966 tickets. A truly lovely couple, a fascinating man - the kindness of strangers, sad to say that when I visited the house to say thank you for 2010 last year, whilst driving around over 130 RSPB reserves last year, 2021, Jim had died.