Rihanna at the Paralympic closing ceremony

We were lucky to get tickets to the wonderful closing ceremony of the london 2012 Paralympic Games. Here is my first installment of pics; firstly of Rihanna!

Baillon's Crake - again!

Would you believe it, after spening 13 hours trying to catch up with the extremely elusive Baillon's Crake at Rainham Marshes RSPB, I popped back late morning today, and saw it within 10 minutes of arriving. I was very lucky as it had not been seen all morning and when someone called it I put my scope up and was right on it. I managed to get 2 or 3 others to connect via my scope before it slinked off again out of view. It wasn't seen again in the next 2 hours I spent in the hide. About 80% of the people in the hide did not see it! I know how they felt!   

Baillon's Crake - Rainham Marshes RSPB

After 13 hours over 3 sessions, including initially missing the bird by about 10 seconds  at dawn yesterday morning, I eventually caught up with the mega rare Baillon's Crake at Rainham Marshes RSPB this afternoon. Phew. It also ended a 4 dip run! I am now back on the tick trail! Not great photos but who cares. ... I saw it.......at last.......yipee!!

 

A packed Shooting Butts hide!  

Wenlock and Maderville Trail - London 2012 Olympics

As you probably know Wenlock and Manderville are the mascots for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. There are 84 statues of the mascots around central London, each one themed to represent the area where it is. You can download a free map showing 5 trails to show you where they are here: www.molpresents.com/stroll

On out trip out on Friday we managed 2 of the trails seeing around 20 statues. The kids loved it and are pestering us to go back ASAP to see the rest! I think the statues will be in place for at least 2 years. We rounded off the day by seeing We Will Rock You, at the Dominion Theatre, which was fantastic!
      

20 emails, 15 phone calls and the threat of legal action and............voila

I don't like it when people blatantly take this piss. This lot were obviously not going to pay me for the Cream Coloured Courser photos of mine that were published in The Daily Mail and The Sun on-line. Despite repeated promises that the cheque was in the post, for weeks on end, like my twitches of late, there was NO SIGN of any payment being forthcoming.

So about 2 weeks ago when yet again I remembered that no payment had arrived, I decided to send one final email. It went something like this:

You lot are taking the piss - pay me the money you owe me - if I don't get it within 10 days I am going to a) sue u for copy write infringement, b) write to the national newspaper photo editors to tell them how u lot operate and c) write to BBC Watchdog.

Anyway, guess what, I got an email back literally within a few minutes, and coincidentally on day 10, just when I thought they had mugged me off again, this arrived in the post.

Ok so they've probably not paid me as much as they should but it's better than nothing!   

Funny shop name

I was very disappointed to find there were no gimp masks or whips in this shop, only cold drink, sweets and newspapers.....

Surely someone would have said something when the owners thought this was a good name? Obviously not!

More moths

A few pics of a few more moths in the garden. At last I got a big Old Lady to land (on me!) rather than fly past and there was a mini influx of Brimstones, with around 50 visiting the bulb. No hawks, but again the bulb was off before midnight.