25 April 2009

"Swift kids!"

The weather provided a real boon this morning. The promise of showers seems to have put a dampener on the Newport masses' lust for the great outdoors with many fewer brightly-coloured anoraks doing the rounds of the reedbeds at Uskmouth. It appears the hordes are very happy to partake of the greenery whilst the sun shines, the paths are well-manicured and there is a cup of coffee waiting in the cafe, but the merest hint of precipitation and they'd rather be sat at home in front of the telly. One wonders whether their newly-aquired, RSPB-inspired environmental awareness isn't equally 'fair-weather'; I wonder weather they'd do a similarly rapid volte-face at the first sign of a green tax or a fuel price hike?

A few of these bad boys have turned up today; part of a broad front by the looks of it, I'm reliably informed a dose appeared at Beddington (amongst other places) this morning too. Other year-ticks safely stowed in the satchel included Cuckoo, Red Admiral and Large Red Damselfly.

2 comments:

Dale Forbes said...

i picked up my first euro swifts of the year down in northern italy yesterday, but they still have not gotten in to the alps proper. maybe later in the week. but the alpine swifts have been around in large numbers over the last few days...

that is a great shot, btw, did you take it?

Dale
http://alpinebirds.blogspot.com

Darryl said...

Yep, it would have been better but my arms were tired, 99.9% of the images on this site are mine, not that that is anything to shout about.