...makes jack a dull boy.
Just to close off the excitement regarding the lack of planes and nice blue sky, here is the same bit of sky that I posted last week.
With no volcano related restrictions.
Continuing on the theme of the continuation of nothing, I was by Heathrow Airport yesterday and stopped along the South Perimeter Road. Normally this would be very noisy and full of the business of the taking of and landing of ruddy great planes. Not yesterday, as only the most hermit-like would not know.
I could hear something though, way up in the sky, too high to see - a Skylark. Singing it's head off, and probably being heard for the first time.
Living in London can be a bit noisy, what with all the planes flying over and all that. The patch is on one of the flight lines to Heathrow, which means that there is almost always a large plane flying over or about to fly over. Noisily. This means that apart from the disproportionately loud song of the local Wrens, you cannot hear a bird singing unless it is sitting on your head. Many of you will know that due to the ashen belching of the splendidly named Eyjafjallajoekull there are no planes flying over. At all. With this in mind, I took up a vantage point on the river bank yesterday to listen for distant song (hoping for a Blackcap again) and to see if the lack of air traffic would increase the amount of raptor activity from zero to one.
Folly.
Why I continue to think that the patch will produce like this, I don't know. But it is what you do as a patch birder. Hope, dream, expect. My raptor watch produced nearby Gulls, Crows and Cormorants. Pigeons too. The hardcore skywatching produced distant Gulls, Crows and Cormorants. Pigeons too.
A bit like this.
