Sunday social and a face to a name!

Benno and I spent a few hours, this morning, on The Royal Military Canal beside The Imperial Hotel golf course. I don't mind letting this location be known - we both blanked and it is not a section that I'll be in any hurry to return to. We had a nice session chatting about ideas for future angling challenges and our holiday plans. We've both come to the conclusion that pike angling, at our chosen local venues, is not up to much, at present, and we need other species to provide the spark of inspiration. Ben is taken by the idea of perch, whilst I, on the other hand, still have my eel project to complete and already have a, Mk IV, summer carp challenge in the advanced stages of preparation.
One subject that was broached - "A Mk IV - glass v's split cane challenge on the river!" Could have some potential?

Apologies for the poor quality of these images - it was almost dark! The final photo, of a 1st winter,
with a very strangely deformed upper mandible.

It was a grotty morning, actually getting darker after 09.30 hrs, any attempts at photography required ISO 1600-1/500th sec exposure for anything close to a usable image. I managed to add two more birds, to my year list,now on 82 species, in the shape of Tawny Owl (several individuals calling from the wooded hillsides above the canal) and Mediterranean Gull (difficult to be certain, but a best guess is around 35 birds feeding on the golf course - all three age groups represented, although only two 2nd winters seen together).

Double-striped Pug - potted from the bedroom ceiling

Moths also made themselves obvious - a Double-striped Pug was potted from our bedroom ceiling and several examples of Winter Moth were seen on my drive down to the RMC. The real highlight of the morning was a meeting with Ian Roberts, the guy responsible for Folkestone & Hythe Birding, ( www.freewebs.com/folkestonebirds ) , a proper nice bloke and we spent a good time chatting about the local birding and other stuff relating to the natural history of the area. Always nice to be able to put a face to a name.