Weather 2008

[annew]

Was that 2 male capercaillie? If so it was very nice of the sparring partner to defend him. Maggi, if you are watching, I'll get the hang of this eventually.

[mark smyth]

Anne, yes two male Capercaillie at a lek and unfortunately, Anthony, no follow up

[Maggi Young]

Just a fascinating film..... I reckoned the only reason the second male stood up for his opponent was because he was so fired up for a fight anyway that he was never going to let the eagle duff up HIS rival, that was HIS job!
Watched a couple of times to try to understand exactly what went on... thought at first that caper the eagle first pounced on was no too badly hurt, since at a copule of points he seemd to be fighting back and sitting up quite strongly, then after the eagle got truly annoyed at the second caper and pounced on him instead, and those two fluttered a little way to the right, I thought that there was just aglimpse of the first caper still lying on the ground, not moving, in the very far left of the frame.... so, sadly, I suspect that the end score was eagle two, capers nil.  I just hopethe eagle atethem both.

Ironic when we keep hearing of capers being killed by flying into low fences etc, that two of them can manage to fall foul ( no pun intended) on one other bird .... not much wonder theyare few in number!

[Anthony Darby]

Impressive stuff. A male caper is a huge bird - turkey sized. I remember seeing one flying through the trees on Inchcailloch (an Island on Loch Lomond where I did an honours project on spiders). The trees seem to move out of the way!

[Lesley Cox]

We had high winds last week. I left the GH doors open but no damage. Snow this morning though, and that's after taking the tortoises out of hibernation on Saturday! [They won't be out of doors until the cricket season starts.]

I'm very impressed that the tortoises go out to play cricket, or do they just watch?

Such a shame about the timid end to the England v NZ test match a couple of hours ago. The brightest spot in England's performance over 5 days was Sidebottom's hat trick. The last test hat trick bowled in NZ was 78 years ago.

[David Nicholson]

We had high winds last week. I left the GH doors open but no damage. Snow this morning though, and that's after taking the tortoises out of hibernation on Saturday! [They won't be out of doors until the cricket season starts.]

Such a shame about the timid end to the England v NZ test match a couple of hours ago. The brightest spot in England's performance over 5 days was Sidebottom's hat trick. The last test hat trick bowled in NZ was 78 years ago.

It takes a Yorkshireman.......

[Mick McLoughlin]

who plays for nottinghamshire

[David Nicholson]

who plays for nottinghamshire

Only just seen the result Mick, we could have done with 11 Yorkshiremen playing and two Yorkshire umpires! No doubt Lesley will be rubbing it in later By the way, he is actually doing missionary work in Notts.

[Kristl Walek]

any of you kind souls who are not too busy looking at what's in bloom in your garden today *could* come over quickly please and help shovel me out of my house (last snow storm of the season, I hope, and what mighty one, it was, 36 hours later)...

after realizing I could not get out of the house (all doors barred by snow), and windows not of the style to allow crawling through), I had to call a friend to come and help....or be trapped indoors until melt-down....

i have plenty of food, and gardening books, and the computer...so i suppose i would be fine...

[Maggi Young]

Kristl, I even have my snow shovel ready at my door..... I am just rather busy this week.... will your supplies last till next week?  Dear me, I would so liked to have helped you out... literally!!

[Lesley Cox]

we could have done with 11 Yorkshiremen playing and two Yorkshire umpires! No doubt Lesley will be rubbing it in later

But there were several Yorkshiremen in the team David. Only the one made much impression. One or two may not live to fight another day.

[Paul T]

Not good Kristl.  I hope you got out OK?

To all in the UK..... I hear reports on our news that you guys are bracing for extreme weather.  Hopefully it won't be too bad, but obviously it is expected to be a nasty blow if they're issuing extreme weather warnings!!?

Good luck all!!

[mark smyth]

Can someone explain weather systems to me please. We have a very calm day here so far. How can there be massive gales a few hundred miles away?

[Lesley Cox]

Pretend the system is an aeroplane Mark. It's way out there in the Atlantic, flying towards Northern Ireland. Eventually, it gets there.

[mark smyth]

But it's battering the UK already. I'm looking out at blue sky just now.