The Thames today would be so high it would be up to the London Apprentice pub next to us – so went a local Facebook rumor.
So, is this one of those times when Full or New Moon coincides with perigee, the Moon’s nearest moment, and tides are highest? No, those times this year are April 27, May 26, and December 4. And the Moon was Full back on Jan. 28, and will be at perigee on Feb. 3. Here is the Moon rising tonight.
And the rumored cause of expected high water was more down-to-earth: an effluence of unpleasant water from somewhere. Not good for water-birds.
Still, the tide was quite high, and we had another reason for going out to look Our Isleworth river front is a sort of beach to which people come walking, and it is perhaps the most bird-ful spot in London, and there may be a connection: people toss bread to the birds. There is a sign saying: “Do not feed bread to the birds.” It ought to be in larger letters, and might be more effective if it added: “It’s bad for them. Use proper bird feed.” Tilly bought some “floating feed for ducks and swans,” and it arrived yesterday, a 15-kilogram sack that will last a long time. The birds don’t have to probe underwater for it, and it won’t swell in their gizzards.
We hope so. The food, as Tilly said, looks a bit like dog kibble. I thought I remembered hearing this word in America, and checked the Oxford English Dictionary. The by-ways of language are endless. There are seven entries for “kibble,” including a kind of cudgel, a kind of hound, and a kind of bucket; kibble (5) is small pieces of material produced by kibbling (grinding), and its sub-sense (b) is pet food of that kind, “mainly North America.”
Another kind of rumor to follow shortly.
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Storks are very very rarer in England almost to the point where there about 1 or 2 nest a year but you get similar looking birds like Egrets and Herons with Herons being much more common depending where you live.we usually have a few Egrets around here all year round.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that white blob on the upper left of your photo. I thought maybe it was snow on the far bank. I had to magnify the photo and then I realized it was a bird in flight.
I was puzzled by that blob too. Ipad photos for some reason are like short videos of half a dozen stills, and you don’t know which of them will get used.
One of the advantages of painting over photography. You can select and emphasize,
My first impression was that it was a huge stork facing to the right standing on a patch of snow. It was funny when I saw that it was a different type of bird… looks like a seagull.
Everybody (everybirdie) in the picture seems well behaved.
Is that truly the case?
Yes, it continues to surprise me that the birds here act as if they are one flock or family, they don’t seem to squabble over the food, geese and pigeons circulate around a swan as if he is paterfamilias.
The sign could be as big as you like and in 100 languages but they’ll still feed cheap white bread to the birds.the Thames is on a high flood alert and I got an alert about flooding in Oxford today, I use to live there, and the Environment Agency clearly think that I still do.the flooding has gotten very bad since the drizzle type rain stopped and has been replaced by heavy showers.partly it’s the type of rain but also the building of things on floodplains especially endless car parks and the run off they cause.virtually every new rail station these days is a parkway a tiny station surrounded by huge car parks exactly how encouraging car journeys fit in with public transport I don’t know which is why I call parkways and park and ride buses pseudo public transport.