12th
February 2010
She's Got A Ticket to Ryde (!) The
Beatles
Into Portsmouth and another Primary School to
visit. Later in the day I caught the ferry, one of the few times during this year that I used carbon/fossil-fuelled transport, over to Gosport and despite buying
two loaves of the cheapest, sticky white loaves of bread to try to attract the
Ring-billed Gull that was 'always' there, it failed to show. A dip that I was
not to pull back until the final days of the year. Still I had an exciting time
being surrounded by dozens of birds coming down for the proffered bread.
After such fun I went to the Spinnaker Tower, a lovely sail-like construction on Portsmouth's harbour entrance. The lift up the tower was tummy ticklingly fast and the thick glass floor near to the balcony edge was fun to bounce and lie down on.
I love heights and my usual
problem is a desire to either jump off or walk off into open space. The views
from the top were unbelievably beautiful. The view over the Solent towards
Cowes was particularly fine and worth the entrance fee on its own.
Next, I enjoyed a boat ride over to the Isle
of Wight and then a cycle ride down to the far south of the island. Near to St
Catherine's Head a wonderful couple had invited me to stay at their amazing
house and I knew that they loved birds as soon as I arrived. Large areas of
open space between bushes and trees in their garden, with mist net poles
erected at each end of long rides, gave away their bird-ringing status.
Ornithologists to be reckoned with, Daphne and Mike had arranged a superb
dinner for the evening and during the meal Daphne showed photographs from a
recent ringing and surveying trip to Australia. The birds en masse on the
photographs were Oriental Pratincoles. “How many were there?” came the
question. It looked like thousands on the photograph. “Fourteen million!”
This website tells of a mere 2.88 million.
2.88 Million Oriental Pratincoles Glareola maldivarum Frank O'Connor, AWSG; (birdingwa.iinet.net.au)
Incredibly well travelled birders and ringers, the evening was fascinating and an absolute pleasure. Another young lady was there, Caroline Dudley, was also a very keen birder, as I was to find out a couple of days later.
27.07 miles
1208 feet elevation up 978 feet down
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