Category: Wildlife/Nature

Chickens Outnumber Humans 3 to 1 (Quick Links 105)

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, Quick Links, walking, Wildlife/Nature1 Comment

It’s been a very wet and windy start to the year, with the arrival of Storm Eleanor and a general period of unsettled weather. By and large we seem to have escaped the worst of the storms although we need see some rather high tides when walking the dogs at Portchester Castle (see above). The moat is normally dry but the high tide had pushed water most of the way around to a reasonable depth.

We had a little rodent visitor during the week. A little mouse found it’s way into my office, and although I tried to catch and release it back outside, Wilson caught and ate it before I had the chance.

A Slight Change to the layout of these posts. I thought I’d start to number these posts rather than use the date. Looking at the records in the admin part of my blog software there are 106 “Quick Links” entries, but two of these weren’t truly quick links so deducting those means that this one is Quick Links 105. I’ve also included something from one of the books I’ve been reading to add something unique to the post title. I’ll follow this layout for a while and see how it goes.

Work – It’s been a quiet return to work for me this week. Catching up with a few contacts and trying to get the ball rolling again. It seems as if quite a few people have elected to take the extra few days and don’t return until Monday 8th.

Allotment – The strong winds and accompanying rain have left the allotment a little bit the worst for wear, and exceedingly wet underfoot. I’ve had to resecure the netting over the brassica cage which had been blown open, but that’s about the worst of it.

As I’ve not been able to get on the plot, I’ve been making sure I’ve got all the seeds, plants etc. I need for the upcoming season. I’ve placed an order to fill some gaps.

I’ve also planted the remaining broad bean seeds that I had, so that I’ll hopefully have some extra plants to fill any gaps in the bed on the plot.

Currently Reading – I finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s “New York 2140” [GoodReads] on New Years Day, which means it’s technically the first book I’ve finished in 2018, even if I was reading it for most of the week before Christmas and up to New Year. It was good and very believable in terms of a potential future for New York with ice caps melted and sea level rise and the city becoming Venice like.

I followed that by reading “Adventures of a Young Naturalist: The Zoo Quest Expeditions”
by David Attenborough [GoodReads]. This very much reads like a Gerald Durrell adventure and is similar in many respects, but is a great read.

Following that I started reading “Tamed: Ten Species that Changed our World”
by Alice Roberts [GoodReads]. These latter two books where both Christmas presents from people who know me well, and the quote in the title of this post comes from this book. The ten species – dogs, wheat, cattle, Maize, Potatoes, Chickens, Rice, Horses, Apples, Humans – all seem to have interesting backstories and it’s entertainingly written.

I’ve set my Good Reads reading challenge to 3o books for 2018, a little bit higher than last year but not significantly so, and still quite a bit less than the number I eventually managed to read in 2017. It’s not really about the numbers for me, so I’m not sure why I bother with the challenge in this way, but I do like to keep track of what I have read.

The Sun Has Got His Hat On!

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Life, walking, Wildlife/Nature3 Comments

The sunshines on me today.


Temperatures between 16 & 18°C, blue sky and barely a cloud in sight. Sunglasses 😎 for the first time this year.

We went for a nice walk this afternoon. It’s my birthday, so no work for me today. Lots of butterflies about, loads of brimstones, plus a peacock and a comma. 

Lots of new books to read too, the only problem is knowing where to start!

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean That You Should…

On By TontowilliamsIn Wildlife/Nature1 Comment

Today’s “Last Word On Nothing” blog raises some interesting questions [LINK]. It’s nice to suppose that we now have the scientific ability to do something like recreate an extinct species, but should we?

I know there has been hype before about recreating dinosaurs, sabre-toothed tigers, and woolly mammoths, but there are also a whole host of other species that mankind has wiped off the face of the earth by its own arrogant stupidity. One of the obvious ones is the Dodo. We hunted that to extinction, and we are pushing and have pushed many more species the same way.

If we can recreate a mammoth, shouldn’t we recreate some of the more recently extinct species? But would we actually learn anything? I mean would we actually learn that just because we can drive a species to extinction, it doesn’t mean that we should, and just because we can now recreate it if we do, does it mean we should? Where are the lessons that we have learnt or should learn about how we are but one species on this planet, and whilst we might consider ourselves to be the most intelligent one (or not), would we be better spending our time and effort not allowing species to become extinct because of our actions (or inaction?)

Dinosaur, woolly mammoth, and sabre-toothed tiger are all arguably species that died out because of other forces (i.e. Not man induced) but is it still right to bring back those species now?

Ruffled Feathers

On By TontowilliamsIn Birds, Wildlife/Nature

Black-headed Gull (dodgy mobile phone pic)

This last week I’ve been noticing a lot of small fluffy feathers all over the playing field. It’s been a pretty wet and blustery week on the whole and the usual black-headed gulls have been there in large numbers, along with several other species, but the black-heads make up by far and away the largest proportion. They are also just turning from their winter plumage and getting the feature that they are named for. (In the winter they have a mostly white head with a small black patch just henind their eye).

Best guest is the extra feathers are related, but it’s quite a carpet and when the breeze gets up it picks them up and blows them dancing around the field. From a distance it looks a little like a carpet of cherry blossom but up close it’s clear what it is.

What The Heron Had For Breakfast

On By TontowilliamsIn Wildlife/Nature1 Comment


The playing fields just over the road from are a good bench mark for me to tell how wet a winter we’ve been having. So far I’d have to say, drier than last winter. That said there is a big wet patch over there, it’s like a bit of marsh land. There is often a Heron out there stalking the amphibian fauna that lives there (it’s not wet enough to support fish, it dries out in the summer). This morning the Heron had been particularly lucky and had bagged himself a particularly large frog. He flew off with it dangling from his beak.