M I T S O T U Soldiers

One of the best things about teaching is working with so many talented young people who go on to make something of themselves. I did, many years ago, for a short while actually run the dance club after school. Very bizarre, I know. And even stranger considering my style of dancing normally causes people to ring for an ambulance. James Collins....probably then in year 10 - rescued me and helped choreograph a dance to Michael Jackson's smooth criminal for which I am eternally grateful....good luck to MITSOTU!! Great song.

Skegness isn't where it used to be.....

http://www.lincstrust.org.uk/reserves/gib/
I have been a little quiet on the blogger front for the last couple of days as I have been at Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve on the Lincolnshire Coast at the northern edge of the Wash. Apart from a weird hiccup on the journey there, when I followed the signs for Skegness that took you instead towards Grimsby.....bizarre road-signing......! It is a wonderfully atmospheric place - a dynamic landscape of wide open spaces and big skies as well as the sounds of skylarks and waders. It is quite literally life on the edge, as high tides quite regularly lap close to the Study Centre's walls...cars have to be parked very carefully. There are times when it can be frustratingly 'birdless' but others when every clump of sea buckthorn seems to conceal a migrant passerine. On Sunday morning I went for an early morning stroll over to Tennyson sands and saw a little ringed plover which had clearly arrived overnight. No luck looking for garganey or short-eared owls though. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. The Wash Study Centre was, as ever, a place of cosy tranquility and excellent food and I look forward to my next visit......although next time I will ignore the signs for Skegness.......!

Skeggy.......

off to Gibraltar point for the annual 'geog-fest' of sand dunes, salt marsh, cooked breakfasts, air hockey, short-eared owls and the ghosts of field trips past.....

Egg head......

has just remembered he is going to have an egg cracked on his head in assembly today as an act of selfless love. It is problematic sometimes to explain fully what I do for a living. Geography teacher is far too narrow. Still...pays the mortgage.....

If you stare for long enough......thanks Fion!

I had a suit made from the same material in the 1980s...bought it from Mr Buyrite on Oxford Street for £10......

Red-billed Queleas "chasing" Elephants away from a waterhole in East Tsavo

Red-billed queleas are small birds but this footage really does show what power there is in numbers. I have stood close to flocks of roosting starlings and watched thousands of knot feeding on the muddy shores of the Wash and the sense of spectacle is amazing. It is hard to explain the sound but they almost create their own weather system as their combined wing beats create a 'wind'. You can sense that the elephants are perplexed by the whole situation.......

BBC - Human Planet - Honey Guide Bird

Amazing when you see a relationship such as this between humans and birds......incredible stuff!