Anyhoo birder chums, hope this all helps.

If not, always remember - when our prayers fail and our personal birding Gods have deserted us, for a small amount of silver we can always buy our indulgences from a bird news provider.

I'll get me halo..
😇

4/4

And a genuine reading, Jeremiah 8:7
"Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord*"

(*Slightly less damning than the judgement of a county rares committee)
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And, yeah, I sang (well, mumbled) my version of 'For those in peril on the see':

🎵 Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm doth push the migrant wave,
who bidd'st them o'er ocean deep
their own appointed timings keep:
O, hear us when we cry to Thee,
for those stuck in viz-misery(!)

2/4

Today, to aid my poor birding chums suffering eternal viz-misery this autumn, I took my family leatherette-bound edition of the DIM Claims Aversion bible off the shelf and offered up a prayer dockside.

The sky then filled with larks and pipits and, hang on, there's a Greenshank down there..

1/4

"Salinity levels in the Shatt al-Arab have reached alarming concentrations, exceeding 30,000 total dissolved solids (TDS), which is approximately half the saltiness of seawater. This severe saltwater intrusion from the Persian Gulf is intensified by #climate change ..."

#Iraq 🇮🇶
#ClimateEmergency

A Southern Green Shieldbug from scrub in the Rainham Dock East part of Riverside Country Park in Rainham (Kent) yesterday. #bugs #Truebugs #Hemiptera #KentNature

2/2

And even when the moon did poke thru' the clouds there'd be a flippin' plane and fading vapour trails in shot..

All of the joys of modern flightlines.

In my purposeful birding days, this time of year I'd have been out counting gulls flighting to the estuary at dusk.

Nowadays takes a rising full moon to get me out. Tho' a cloudy horizon meant I was looking at gulls. So few nowadays. None of the joys of the old flightlines.

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Consider the veins in the wing of this Common Darter and the veins in the leaf it's perched on...

bUt wHaT aBoUt CHiNa??

"..China led the clean energy charge but richer nations including the US and EU relied more than before on planet-warming fossil fuels for electricity generation.

..China remains way ahead in clean energy growth.."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ohhh I'm a very excited old timer tonight👍
Touching Geddy/Alex asked/got the nod from Neil's family.
Right it will be as much a tribute to Neil as a tour.
So interested in hearing Anika's take.
And hopefully the tour CD / DVD (Yeah I'm that old😜) will follow pdq(!)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwt5...

For immediate attention!!!
#RushFamily
Watch NOW!!!!

youtu.be/koiX_Wspatw?...

Anika Nilles - welcome to the #RushFamily.

Anika has been announced as Rush's drummer for next year's tour:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOWM...

🚨BREAKING NEWS!!!! 🚨
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have decided to dust off their instruments and bring back the #Rush tour machine with new drummer Anika Nilles for a 7 city, 12 date tour in 2026! www.rushisaband.com/blog/2025/10...

190 countries + territories (most of the world) have already broken monthly heat records in these 6 days of October.

Needless to say, nothing even remotely close to this, had ever happened before.

High minimum records are at least tripling those of High maximums.

How many years now?? The Medway's 'Wisequack', our version of Midway's 'Wisdom'😉

Phew, good to hear!👍

(It's the allotmenteer in me, things you assemble yourself are meant to have bits fall off 😉)

Never mind the birds young Steve😉, how's the "wee greenhouse" doing??

In case you missed it - here's this weeks episode of @boldpolitics.bsky.social with Gary Stevenson.

100k views and growing!

youtu.be/WRVfmQkCSdk?...

Hah, nice one Steve 👍 - you've had me searching out the ground, and love the stitchwork by Google - "Ideal Town" it is from now on whenever someone mentions "ffootball" 😉

This is good —the Mayor of Yellowknife NWT in Canada’s far north weighs in on “Car Bloat” (truck bloat actually) and its many big costs & consequences (thanks @davidzipper.bsky.social for heads-up). And like most who dare tell the truth about that, he’s taking flack.
www.linkedin.com/mwlite/feed/...

2/2

(2) Car brakes, driver shouts "Got a Kingfisher?"
"Well I *was* watching 'crests."
"Good for Kingfishers here. Just driving up and down to photograph 'em."
And he was away before I could say if turned engine off he'd have heard the Kingfishers calling."

🤔 Best to walk carefully thru village? 😉

A quiet day in, finishing sorting out Thur's pics.
This is a dour river, The Dour, in River.

2 fun chats w. locals.

(1) "Our garden backs on the river, see Kingfishers all the time. River's low now of course. Should see it when floods. Be perfect here if it wasn't for the insurance costs.."

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