The shop keepers in Swanage certainly know how to celebrate Christmas, their window displays are just great. I've taken a few photos to show how everyone makes an effort and how good the town looks at Christmas.
Quite impressive I reckon!
Wednesday 28 December 2016
Epic Christmas Window Displays in Swanage!
Wednesday 28th December 2016
The shop keepers in Swanage certainly know how to celebrate Christmas, their window displays are just great. I've taken a few photos to show how everyone makes an effort and how good the town looks at Christmas.
The shop keepers in Swanage certainly know how to celebrate Christmas, their window displays are just great. I've taken a few photos to show how everyone makes an effort and how good the town looks at Christmas.
Friday 16 December 2016
A Cold December Afternoon Beach Walk
Friday 16th December 2016
Despite the cold we had a lovely walk along Swanage Beach from Shep's Hollow this afternoon. There was alarming evidence of cliff falls all along the beach from heavy rain and fierce seas, enough to keep me away from too near the cliffs! Walking back along the beach we came across a couple of teenagers swimming/body boarding in the sea - without wetsuits, just thinking about it makes me feel cold, goodness only knows how they felt!!
Despite the cold we had a lovely walk along Swanage Beach from Shep's Hollow this afternoon. There was alarming evidence of cliff falls all along the beach from heavy rain and fierce seas, enough to keep me away from too near the cliffs! Walking back along the beach we came across a couple of teenagers swimming/body boarding in the sea - without wetsuits, just thinking about it makes me feel cold, goodness only knows how they felt!!
The sand from the main beach appears to be at the north end of the beach for now, and the main beach seems to have lots of stone.
A couple of nice finds, a tiny cuttlefish and a mermaids purse.
A welcome bit of colour on a dull December afternoon.
A festively coloured beach hut complete with a Christmas wreath.
As the sun sets, so ends another walk!
Wednesday 7 December 2016
Poole & Harbourside Park
Wednesday 7th December 2016
We had a brief shopping trip to Poole this morning, mixed in with a walk along the harbour. Despite it being the end of the first week in December it was surprisingly calm in the town centre and we were in and out of the shops quite quickly and painlessly.
We had a brief shopping trip to Poole this morning, mixed in with a walk along the harbour. Despite it being the end of the first week in December it was surprisingly calm in the town centre and we were in and out of the shops quite quickly and painlessly.
There's so much more in the little streets off of the main roads.
The tourist information centre even had a postbox for mail to Santa!
I didn't dare go in to this old fashioned sweetshop, as I may well have had to try everything!!
The harbour Christmas tree, alive to the sound of singing....
house sparrows. A lovely temporary home for them amongst the branches.
Now and then as we walked passed the fishing boats and fishing equipment, it smelt revolting, very fishy!!
Black headed gulls keeping watch.
The tide was coming in and there were plenty of wading birds about. We saw several of these turnstones and among others, cormorants and oyster catchers.
The par overlooking the harbour is a nice place to just sit and watch the boats coming and going, away from the hustle and bustle, overlooking Brownsea Island.
Friday 18 November 2016
A Visit To RSPB Arne Nature Reserve - Twitchers We Are Not!!
Friday 18th November 2016
We had a lovely walk at the RSPB Arne Nature Reserve this afternoon, we had a wander through the reserve, taking in the autumn colours and the fresh smell of peat and pine. We have been to the reserve a number of times and each time we've stopped off at the bird hide which looks out across Poole Harbour. Usually we are the only ones there but today both the lower and higher hides were busy. The tide for once was in so there were lots of birds to spot - this is where we came a bit unstuck, we are quite good I would say at identifying many birds but wading birds is obviously not our thing, there were quiet mutterings around us of sightings of various birds, none of which we had a clue about. Luckily there were details and pictures of wading birds in the hide, so we could take a sneaky look at the birds that the twitchers had spotted then try and spot them ourselves!!!
In the far distance we had dismissed a large group of 'geese' but the reason for the amount of people in the hides was to see the spoonbills!!!! (the so called geese that we had dismissed). I think we can safely say we are not very good twitchers!! We did however spot oyster catchers, egrets, curlews, and sika deer from the hide.
When we got back to the car park the lady RSPB volunteer that was on duty at the information centre asked if we'd had a nice walk and asked if we had seen the spoonbills. She told us all about them and now we know that very few (about 70 birds) come from the Netherlands at this time of year and we had seen about 30 of them, the rest she said could well be at Brownsea Island another of their favourite haunts apparently.
We had a lovely walk at the RSPB Arne Nature Reserve this afternoon, we had a wander through the reserve, taking in the autumn colours and the fresh smell of peat and pine. We have been to the reserve a number of times and each time we've stopped off at the bird hide which looks out across Poole Harbour. Usually we are the only ones there but today both the lower and higher hides were busy. The tide for once was in so there were lots of birds to spot - this is where we came a bit unstuck, we are quite good I would say at identifying many birds but wading birds is obviously not our thing, there were quiet mutterings around us of sightings of various birds, none of which we had a clue about. Luckily there were details and pictures of wading birds in the hide, so we could take a sneaky look at the birds that the twitchers had spotted then try and spot them ourselves!!!
In the far distance we had dismissed a large group of 'geese' but the reason for the amount of people in the hides was to see the spoonbills!!!! (the so called geese that we had dismissed). I think we can safely say we are not very good twitchers!! We did however spot oyster catchers, egrets, curlews, and sika deer from the hide.
When we got back to the car park the lady RSPB volunteer that was on duty at the information centre asked if we'd had a nice walk and asked if we had seen the spoonbills. She told us all about them and now we know that very few (about 70 birds) come from the Netherlands at this time of year and we had seen about 30 of them, the rest she said could well be at Brownsea Island another of their favourite haunts apparently.
A field of epic cows with even more epic horns of various arrangements!
A leafless silver birch tree covered in ivy almost looking like a fir tree.
Poole Harbour in the distance.
The view from the bird hide and right in the very distance, visible only with binoculars,
spoonbills (zoomed in to infinity and beyond, hence the less than clear photo).
An egret was a bit closer to the hide.
The view from Shipstall Beach.
In front of us, one at a time a group of sika deer crossed the path. We had to be very quick with the cameras but my photos were absolutely rubbish, these of Steve's however were better, I put the photo of the albino deer in despite it being out of focus just because it's special ..... the deer not the photo!
There were a few dead old trees about with many holes in, this one as well as holes in it, had some rather large fungi on it.
On the way back to the car, as the light was fading, in the woods we saw eight grey squirrels scratching about in the leaves. I wonder if they were searching for their last meal of the day?
Beautiful colours.
I asked the lady about a fox with a limp and a bad leg that we had seen on a visit in April, we saw it close to the information centre and it didn't seem frightened or bothered by us at all and walked very close past us. She knew all about the fox and told us that her leg had healed up and she had had a litter in the spring, it was lovely to hear that all appears well with her.
A happy tale after all.
Monday 14 November 2016
A Tale of a Squirrel and Some Old Plums!
Monday 14th November 2016
I have spent the last half an hour or so watching the grey squirrel that found our garden back in the spring. Well, this morning he or she is back and has been very busy burying goodies for when he or she gets the munchies in the depths of winter. First of all it had a good old feed on the sunflower seeds in the bird feeder and then it went into action on our old plum tree. There are dead shrivelled remains of plums all over the tree and the squirrel was easily pulling them off of the ends of some very tiny branches. Then he or she took the stone and moved to somewhere more appropriate for the weight of a squirrel and chewed off the plum stone to leave just the kernel. It was then just a matter of burying the kernel in the garden, covering it up and finally doing lots of patting to cover it up - this last move appeared to be quite important going by the patting that went on each time!
I have spent the last half an hour or so watching the grey squirrel that found our garden back in the spring. Well, this morning he or she is back and has been very busy burying goodies for when he or she gets the munchies in the depths of winter. First of all it had a good old feed on the sunflower seeds in the bird feeder and then it went into action on our old plum tree. There are dead shrivelled remains of plums all over the tree and the squirrel was easily pulling them off of the ends of some very tiny branches. Then he or she took the stone and moved to somewhere more appropriate for the weight of a squirrel and chewed off the plum stone to leave just the kernel. It was then just a matter of burying the kernel in the garden, covering it up and finally doing lots of patting to cover it up - this last move appeared to be quite important going by the patting that went on each time!
Remove outside of plum stone,
bury kernel,
pat well down,
and start all over again and again and again.....
All we have to hope is that his or her memory is better than mine and that he or she comes back for the goods, otherwise it looks like we'll have a mass of plum trees growing, .... plums anyone?
Tuesday 8 November 2016
Swanage Lifeboat Testing The New Slipway
Tuesday 8th November 2016
We were out walking in Swanage today when we unexpectedly came across the Swanage all weather lifeboat testing out the new slipway. The work continues on the brand new boathouse but the slipway appears to be finished and is undergoing testing this week. We stood watching as the boat was inched slowly up the slipway, inched back down a bit, then back up a bit more.... and so on! The boat made it into the new boathouse and then started to come slowly back down. We were hoping to see the boat launched down the slipway but after over an hour and a half of standing around we were getting quite cold so decided to give up. A video went on to Facebook in the afternoon showing it's first launch in the late afternoon so it was a good job we didn't wait, we'd have been there a long time!!
We were out walking in Swanage today when we unexpectedly came across the Swanage all weather lifeboat testing out the new slipway. The work continues on the brand new boathouse but the slipway appears to be finished and is undergoing testing this week. We stood watching as the boat was inched slowly up the slipway, inched back down a bit, then back up a bit more.... and so on! The boat made it into the new boathouse and then started to come slowly back down. We were hoping to see the boat launched down the slipway but after over an hour and a half of standing around we were getting quite cold so decided to give up. A video went on to Facebook in the afternoon showing it's first launch in the late afternoon so it was a good job we didn't wait, we'd have been there a long time!!
The Swanage all weather lifeboat, George Thomas Lacy, is the one on the right and a spare one is on the left! The inshore lifeboat is on the far right.
Testing begins.
Winching slowly up.
A new boathouse is being built to house the larger Shannon class lifeboat.
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