Atmospheric Sunday

Yet more tree planting at Buckton with Dave Wardby. Soon had this finished and had a good blog around the site - highlights being prolonged views of a male Peregrine over the sea, a flyover Common Buzzard, a flock of over 10,000 Starlings, a Chiffchaff, 4 Goldcrests, Tree Sparrows back on territory and a great weather front over the Yorkshire Wolds on the way home.

Avocet dawn and crest fallen evening

Broom from 0550hrs - overnight deluge of rain and winds from SSW looked promising for a odd bird or two this morning. Broom was quiet but at least I was out and about when I received a text from Andy Plumb at 7am saying he had just found an Avocet at Elstow Pits. The bird was distant when I arrived and was being hassled by gulls - amazingly the pit it was on didn't have an inch of visible shoreline so the bird spent the entire time bobbing around in the middle !

This evening I found myself at Beachy Head and in the 30 minutes of daylight that I had I discovered a minimum of 4 Firecrests and the site probably held many more as all the four crests that I saw were Firecrests and several others were calling from scattered locations on the headland.

How important will 20 seconds prove to be ....

Our famous club is in need of help.....


At 2-1 up with ten minutes to go even Michael, the man who sits infront of us had hope, we knew better, this is Wednesday you are watching afterall.



Saturday was like so many Saturday's before, we played well, were winning with twenty minutes to go and then imploded by defending too deep and inviting the other team to score an equaliser in the dying seconds. Except this time it was personal and serious - personal because the opposition manager was Neil Warnock once of the other Sheffield team (I cant even write their name) and a man with a serious hoodoo over us. Serious because we are in 'SH one T' and could get relegated from this division quite easily. Well to be honest its us, Coventry or Leicester who will be going down with Scunthorpe and Colchester - so watch this space. There is a real irony to all of this though, waiting in the wings are several consortiums of business men who actually want to take over our beloved club, wipe out the 30 million debt and INVEST ! Now a club in the Championship is far more appealing than one which has just get relegated to the 1st Division but we as fans can do little to change the course of history - other than turn up, pay the money, shout ourselves horse and go home more often unhappy ..... until the next match. Its all rather addictive though, the hope that we are going to sort ourselves out and win creeps up on you all week from the lowest low on Mondays through to Saturday at 3pm, when... well, you would put your house on the fact you are going to win !

Hope springs eternal in football, there is always the future.... but on this occasion if we blow it then we might not have a future, its that serious.

Conceding a goal with 20 seconds left on the clock when a victory would have lifted us up 4 places and out of the relegation zone is hard to take.

Its now Tuesday and I am just about able to write about it ..... role on Saturday !

All hail the Wheatear's return !

Easter howler

Woke up this morning to find about two inches of snow had fallen over night, quite amazing considering 3 weeks ago it was hot enough to wear t-shirts, in February ! Anyway, Norman thought it was all rather novel especially as it was his first experience of the white stuff.

By mid day it had almost all thawed out leaving slush and slosh ! We went out birding mid afternoon and had 20 Sand Martins at Willington - all flying around in circles low over the main lake in a motion I hesitate to call feeding, when conditions were so wintery. To further illustrate the strange circumstances several Chiffchaffs were trying to sing nearby - no doubt translated into 'why did we leave Africa so early'.

The day was finished off with a smart Barn Owl at Broom. That was Easter Sunday. The pictures are especially for Tony and Stella.

Guest appearance

Tiger, Ranthambore Reserve, India, March 2008 Peter & Miriam Neatherway

Football or Shopping ?

OK, so the mighty Wednesday are not doing too well, languishing in third from bottom spot to be exact but imagine my total shock when on Saturday I was asked by a man sounding like Jasper Carrot - 'Football or Shopping?'.

To set the scene, I was at the barrier gates to a large out of town shopping mall on the outskirts of Coventry, famed largely because it offered the perfect football parking solution being situated directly next door to the Ricoh Staduim.

I answered 'Shopping', in a half muted don't tell the rest of the world voice - we sailed through. But that was not the end of it - in fact far from it really. I had to then take down my Wednesday car stickers in fear of being spotted by the shopping police - oh the indignation.

I then endured 90 minutes of what could only be described as tripe, a 0-0 draw and to be honest the team would have been better choosing 'shopping'.

The final straw came when on exiting the by now famous shopping car park, the same yellow coated 'official' demanded to see my shopping ! Now here is the nirvana, at this point insert long suffering football girlfriend to produce said 'shopping' - not much they can say really - especially when as a parting gesture the Sheffield Wednesday flag, now re-erect in the back window, spoke a thousand words !

Choose shopping - live Football !

early signs