Into The Great Wide Open

                                      Into the great wide open,
                                                 Under them skies of blue,

                                                 Into the great wide open.....
                                                             a rebel without a clue.....
                                                                   Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

0730 - 0915 Cold, clear sky, WSW occasional F2-4 gusting F4-5

Probably one of the coldest days for a wander this winter.  So far.  But onwards it went and it wasnt really that bad compared to Scott of the Antarctic.

So, with eyes occasionally watering from the occasional blast of F5 and nose running faster than Steve Ovett what was there to see.....

Blackbird, Green Woodpecker, Robin, Fieldfare, Redwing, Crow, Woodpigeon, 4 Stock Dove, Magpie, Great Tit, Merlin, Kestrel, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blue Tit, Wren, Bullfinch, Feral Pigeon, Goldfinch, Dunnock, Sparrowhawk.

And on the pits.....

37 Mallard, 39 Coot, 34 Gadwall, 8 Little Grebe, 3 Great Crested Grebe, 23 Tufted Duck, 9 Cormorant, 34 Black Headed Gull, 7 Herring Gull, 2 Goldeneye (1f, 1m), 2 Grey Heron, 7 Teal, 40 Greylag Geese over E, 1 Lapwing over W (later disturbed from West gravel pit), 1 Common Snipe.

...heres a not so great but not too bad a picture...

Common Snipe, Gallinago gallinago

Nice to see a female Goldeneye has joined the male.  After some Woodpigeon had flown out of the roost I decided to count the remainder.  I counted the majority, around 430, but I suppose I must have missed 50 or so.
The Fieldfare/Redwing roost was down in numbers and mostly seemed to be Fieldfare.

Now....slightly off piste...back to Scott....2012 was the centenary of his trudge to death via the South Pole....2014 and in to 2015 is the centenary of Shackletons Endurance expedition.  Scott had several exhibitions, an extremely good one at Chatham Dockyards actually.  So, Shackleton has several exhibitions too.  Most of them are at the Scott Polar Research Centre in Cambridge although there are, if you are so inclined, a few expeditions to Antarctica (if I had the money!!)....

The James Caird, the boat Shackleton and a small crew sailed to South Georgia, currently in Dulwich College, London, was kept at Ely Place, Frant on the Kent/Sussex border or a while, go here, http://www.antarctic-circle.org/llag.ship.htm.

....and I take my hat off to any of the people that went to Antarctica back then, with little technology to support them.  And when my fingers were cold this morning I thought of all those guys that collected data using equipment made of metal that would freeze to the hand or face in seconds....

...right....back on piste please.....