The Journey North

On Thursday 15th August I set off on my journey to Rutland with my best mate Graeme, to spend a long weekend in Rutland and a visit to the 25th annual Birdfair held at the Egleton Nature Reserve on Rutland water. Our journey started at Brighton station on a First Capital Connect service to St Pancras International. St Pancras is known for its Victorian architecture and is a marvel of engineering and construction, remarkable when you consider that it was opened in 1868. When it opened, the arched Barlow train shed was the largest single-span roof in the world.

St Pancras escaped planned demolition in the 1960s (thank goodness) and the complex was renovated and expanded during the 2000s at a cost of £800 million. This now includes a security-sealed terminal area for Eurostar services and domestic services operated by East Midlands Trains, First Capital Connect and Southeastern High Speed. The travel writer Simon Calder  has described the redeveloped terminus as "the world's most wonderful railway station", a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with.

For our onward journey we joined an East Midlands train service to Sheffield and alighted at the first stop - Leicester - where we transferred to a Cross Country train service to Oakham via Melton Mowbray.

A local bus took us to our final destination of the Crown Hotel in Uppingham where we thought it would be rude not to have a pint of Everard's Tiger ale before checking into our rooms.....

More to follow about Rutland and the Birdfair.

The Woodpigeon

We have regular daily visits to the garden feeders by Woodpigeons Columba palumbus and these birds have become remarkably adept at accessing the smaller, hanging seed feeders. Of late, the parent birds have been joined by two juveniles who tend to feed on one of the platform feeders.

This photo of two juveniles, taken earlier today, is not particularly sharp - taken on a Nikon Coolpix P510 at full zoom, through the kitchen window and hand held at 1/60th! The juvenile lacks the white neck patches of the adult bird although they do already have the diagnostic white wing flashes. These two youngsters clapped their wings noisily as they took off in tandem.

I am now getting everything packed for my journey tomorrow to Rutland to visit the Birdfair 2013. I will be travelling by train: 1st leg on First Capital Connect from Brighton to St. Pancras International, then a change to East Midland trains to Leicester and the final leg on Cross Country trains to Oakham. The plan is then to take a bus for the 12 mile journey to Uppingham and the Crown Inn.

Meanwhile another photo of Bertie:

And some attractive flowers in my garden. Anyone know what they are?

I hope to post from Rutland if I can find a sufficiently strong Wi-fi signal.....