Tag Archives: lapwings

Donna Nook – Seals (2)

As I hinted in the last post, there’s a bit of a disaster looming, though, to be fair, it sort of worked out alright.

We arrived at the car park after a trek across Lindsey (one of the ancient divisions of Lincolnshire) and found it was full. Worse than that, there were a couple of people lurking round waiting for spaces so it was a slow job getting round and finding the overspill car park. This one costs £2 but they have portable toilets, and after journey of one and a half hours this was quite a welcome feature.

From the car park it only took a couple of minutes to walk over the sea defences and down to the beach. That was when disaster struck. I raised the camera to take a picture of the Donna Nook sign and…

…do you remember that I said in the last post that part of my plan for the morning had been to take my camera card out of the card reader and fit it in the camera?

Have you ever had that “Memory Full” message? I have. It’s a dreadful thing to see when you’re miles from home and you’re planning on a big photo session.

I suppose it’s already obvious that I managed to get round this, but for a moment I have to admit I was somewhat downcast. The solution was really quite simple – clear the camera’s limited memory (around 30 pictures) and use it to store a limited number of pictures.

Here are the results.

 

There will be more seals in a few weeks, as this is just the start of the season. The best season on record resulted in over a thousand pups, so I deduce there could be ten times as many seals by the end of the month. That’s a lot of seals.

There was also a warning notice, as Donna Nook is still an active RAF bombing range. I have heard them bombing sometimes when travelling in the area, though they don’t bomb when the seals are ashore.

There was plenty to see other than seals – including Pied Wagtails,Skylarks, Starlings, Shelducks, Redshanks, Crows and Great Black-backed Gulls. There was plenty of sea buckthorn too.

Ambushed by salad

We had a late lunch at Carsington Water after a dropping off Number Two son in Sheffield and taking a trip through the misty Peak District. There weren’t any decent photo opportunities, and when I did stop to try I ended up depressed by the fly-tipping in the lay-by.

Lunch would have been a bit earlier but the satnav disgraced itself by taking us into an Industrial  Estate and trying to send us up a cul-de-sac. It’s not the first time.

I may have to rethink my newly found confidence in technology…

The meal, supposedly cheese and pickle sandwiches with a side order of chips, came with an unexpected extra – salad. It was excellent salad (better than the sandwiches if the truth is told)  and to my surprise I quite enjoyed it. However, I can’t help thinking that there should have been more warning that the salad element was going to be more than a symbolic garnish. You have warnings for allergies and for Vegetarian and Vegan foods, why not a big green “H” for “Healthy”?

I appreciate that healthy is good, and that I have to alter my diet, but you can’t just spring it on me. The shock isn’t good for a man of my age.

The salad was crisp and full of flavour and the chips were crisp and tasty. There was plenty of tea in the pot. The sandwiches fell slightly short – the rocket garnish was good, the onion relish was good (though without the promised bite of chilli) and the cheese was OK, though it could have been a bit stronger without overpowering things. It was just a little disappointing that the bread was slightly dried out on the surface.

As for the birdwatching, we managed to avoid all the interesting birds that were listed on the board in the RSPB shop and I also missed a good photo of a male Reed Bunting.

Here are some I did get.