Monday, 12 September 2011
A Wild Weekend
Destination Kent. For Ian it is the Wildlife Heritage Foundation and for me RSBP Dungeness.
http://www.whf.org.uk/index.esp
http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/d/dungeness/index.aspx
Ian is having a photography day and I am taking advantage of the trip to go to a RSPB reserve nearby. It is an early start but we make good time until the last mile or so, and then get lost, we are so close but cannot find the right road. Eventually after asking several people directions we get on the right track. Good job it is time for us to go our own ways as we are quite tetchy to say the least. It is a glorious day & I enjoy the additional driving time to calm down. I arrive at Dungeness and am hopeful to see some migrants passing through although the weather is too good as they are all flying overhead and not stopping off. It is quite sad to see large flocks of Swallow flying out to sea knowing they will not be back until next spring. They have a huge journey ahead of them to Africa & it is quite poignant to watch.
Driving down to the visitor centre I spotted a Marsh Harrier carrying out an aerial display. I saw a cattle Egret & a great white Egret, not seen by me in GB before. It is quite strange to be on my own, but people around are very friendly & full of chat. I enjoyed the sunshine and the peace it was beautiful. Dungeness is a very strange place, a huge shingle spit that sticks out into the channel, it is wild and very umm, weird. You get a feeling of being sort of left behind, like earth has been deserted or something. It’s strange but great. I had fab weather great birding & lovely people in the visitor centre.
Panic Stations
Back to collect Ian, wondering how he has got on. Get back to the sanctuary and find the security gate open, strange. Then I spy a helicopter ooh perhaps someone famous is here, (WHF is not open to the public). Uh oh notice it is actually an air ambulance – Pulse racing – notice blue flashing lights and another ambulance parked by the visitor centre – people running around – feeling sick – fight or flee is kicking in & the urge to run away is very great – heart is hammering loudly in my ears. (Well if anyone is going to get bitten by a Tiger it’s going to be Ian), and I still carry that other fear about him with me. With jelly like legs I go towards the centre where I see one of the staff, who tells me there has been an accident, uh right ok but..... It’s not cat related he goes on.... OK still not feeling any better..... It’s not one of the photographers ... Huge sigh of relief! Someone had had a chain saw accident pretty nasty but he was ok. Felt guilty about the huge sigh of relief now.
Big Cats
Ian had a huge smile on his face when I finally caught up with him. He had a fantastic day took some amazing photo’s and learnt a lot about various big cats. There were Snow Leopards, Lions, Tigers, Puma’s a Cheetah called Murphy and many others. Check out the link!
We were staying in the Q Hotel Ashford International about ½ an hour away. Booked in had a quick drink and played with the ipad (Lovin it). Managed to download some photos. We had a really nice dinner but both were exhausted and could barely keep our eyes open. A fitful night’s sleep for me as had raging headache like someone had put an axe in my neck ( I blame the Chainsaw stress, not the red wine) and like most hotels where the average room temperature is 30 degrees. PAH. Nice room & hotel though.
Scotney Castle
After a lazy start to the day and a nice cooked brekkie, having checked that the beautiful weather we had yesterday had actually gone and replaced with high winds a rain forecast for later, we go to Scotney Castle. Fantastic place and excellent for photographers. The aforementioned rain came bang on time at 1pm so we made the decision to brave the M25 early and got home to enjoy a nice sunny evening.
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