Saturday 28 February 2009

Pegwell Bay

Jeremy Paxman, in his series on Victorian art, highlighted William Dyce's Pegwell Bay painted in 1858. It illustrated the recent awareness that the earth and its nature is far older than previously thought, by showing fossil-hunters, the cliffs which were formed during history rather than at the start of it, and a comet in the skies.
On Dyce's cliffs (seen across the bay from the nature reserve) a weekly meeting is held of the High Command of East Kent birding, convened to determine whether or not various sightings should be accepted or struck from the records. Few are accepted, unless accompanied by DNA analysis. As it may be imagined, the meetings are held with great seriousness.
The night was clear, with Venus in conjunction with the moon, followed by a glorious afternoon.
Dr Ray (rtd) managed to catch up with a Great Grey Shrike in Pannel Valley, nicely following up a sighting of a Dartford Warbler and a flushed Short-eared Owl.

3 comments:

Warren Baker said...

oh for a shrike on my patch - of any kind!

Mary said...

Beautiful bay and shrike! Nice moon and Venus! I tried to take a photo of stars/planets, but can't figure out how to do it. I'd love a photo of Orion.

Kingsdowner said...

Warren,
I think that shrikes were about the only species that didn't make it onto your February Garden list! Well done - a worthy winner.

Mary, that's a very amateur shot - I'm always impressed by the photos that are taken showing the details of the moon/planets.