Friday 22nd September 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good morning.

Some excellent local news.

https://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/ ... hospitals/

“Having a shared service with Barts Health will help use taxpayers’ money more efficiently.”

The trust currently contracts out its 77,000 annual non-emergency journeys to G4S, but is switching to Barts Health in-house service which already runs 356,000 trips a year to the Royal London, Newham University and Bart’s hospitals. The G4S ambulance employees are switching to the NHS with a new pay deal.

So outsourcing actually costs more money!

Who'd have thunk it eh?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Almost everybody?

Outsourcing was a fad that gripped too many in New Labour, as well.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Back from my Cumbrian caravan jaunt. Got a free upgrade to a deluxe caravan which was awesome then spent two days hunkered down in it enduring driving rain with wind gusting at 60mph. It was rocking around so much it was like trying to sleep during an earthquake. Being an idiot I still insisted on going out walking in said conditions which was fun/horrible/painful in about equal measure. Finally the sun came out yesterday afternoon. Here's Morecambe bay from the North, I walked down onto the sands from a place called Humphrey Head. Not too far though because of the genuine danger of quicksand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Head

Apologies for the noise, it was still a bit windy.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Ah so that's where you were then.

Bit of a trek from where I am based, told you it is a big county (well, sort of, post this spring)

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ak

Cumbria is a big place, you know. Where exactly are you?

https://www.haven.com/parks/lake-district/lakeland

I'm not going to lie, previously I'd have sneered at the idea of staying in a caravan park, but then I found out you can book the caravan on its own without paying for access to the 'entertainment facilities' at a much reduced price. In this case £85 for 4 nights. And while it was obviously tragic that I was forced to stay alone in my deluxe caravan with the free heating turned up drinking wine and watching films in the evening rather than enjoying the delights of a naff expensive bar full of obese people in sweatpants, I think it was a sacrifice worth making.

[gilsey]

near the one and only Lake District in Cumbria

It's a bit out on a limb, how do you get there without a car?

Nice video, glad you had one sunny day.
I've been to Arnside a couple of times, lovely place.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Bit of a trek from where I am based, told you it is a big county (well, sort of, post this spring)

I've enjoyed Cumbria many a time, but never that far South, and while it didn't have the beauty of the Lake District I found Morecambe Bay genuinely fascinating due to the range of coastal habitats and their extent. Huge salt marshes covered in bunnies and some quite unexpected bird species*. It's also easy to see how so many die (those poor Chinese cockle pickers) or have to be rescued after being trapped on the sands because it's not really sand at all. It's a mixture of sand and silt and it only needs a little water to be involved before it starts sucking at your boots. It's like nothing I've ever walked on before.

*Most of the birds were fairly common but in numbers I've never seen before, oystercatchers lining the shore as far as the eye could see and hundreds of shelducks, and there were a few rare ones like whinchats, presumably hanging around the coast waiting for the wind to bugger off before departing for Africa. But there was one little orange bastard all by itself sitting on a fence post that I still can't identify. It could have been something foreign blown in by the storms over the Atlantic. All I know is after hours of trying to work out what it was I'm still none the wiser.

So yeah, aesthetically it was no match for the Lakes but if you're into your fauna and flora it was a treat.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

It's a bit out on a limb, how do you get there without a car?

Train from Leeds to Carnforth (Brief Encounter) then from there to Cark. A most splendid journey through North Yorkshire then the best bit of Lancashire (the Forest of Bowland).

[AnatolyKasparov]

Morecambe Bay is brilliant, yes. Its tidal flats are amongst the most extensive in the world.

[gilsey]

little orange bastard all by itself sitting on a fence post

A long way away presumably, or you'd have got a photo of it.
Stonechat is the first to spring to mind, but Red-backed shrike would be nice.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Probably the former, shrikes became effectively extinct in these parts a few generations ago now.

[gilsey]

I'd guess sky knows a Stonechat when he sees one anyway.

Shrikes turn up a couple of times a year at South Gare, Teesmouth, grey ones as well.

Rare/unusual birds are probably a lot commoner than we think, don't get spotted unless there's a twitcher in the vicinity.

There's a hoopoe somewhere in south Cumbria currently but you wouldn't expect to see it on a fence post.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

A long way away presumably, or you'd have got a photo of it.
Stonechat is the first to spring to mind, but Red-backed shrike would be nice.

I did take a photo with my phone, but phone cameras working as they do it's a small blurry smudge.

I know Stonechats well, I've looked through all the chats, and warblers, and pipits, and tits. Through binoculars this thing was an almost uniform reddish orange with black and white flashes on its wings. The nearest thing I could compare it to in colour would be a pale crossbill but it had a normal beak. I'm stumped.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Definitely not a shrike. I'm beginning to think it was a female chaffinch on the game that had dyed its feathers and fluffed itself up.

[Sky'sGoneOut]