Travel & things

Travel

I've decide not to post for the sake of it but, I thought I would add a bit about our travels since retirement on my 52nd birthday.

We've made a decision, to try and spend all we can,before we can't, or before we croak it!

Still not certain why people won't spend their hard earned and miss out, just to leave something for the kids.Most of whom are better off than they are anyway.

Still it's their choice.

Our early days were spent in Europe, visiting the non-touristy locations of Spain, Portugal and France, we also spent a number of holidays, on various Mediterranean islands. We dodged the Red Barrel and fish & chip places.

After the Europe trips we visited Kenya,Cuba, Ecuador and the Galapagos, China,Sri Lanka, moving on to Australia and the USA , then on to South Africa last year, and India this.

We still have to go back to Australia and the States, and maybe China again,but Pauline likes the idea of a visit to Russia by river first. I fancy the idea of some foreign fishing trips!

We are both nature fans, so the Kenya, Galapagos and India trips were primarily to see the wildlife, the remainder just to see what they were like, and to see some flora & fauna was a bonus.

I may do a Blog on our visits each country at some time.

Bloody Cats
Well, four o'clock this morning awakened by unusual bird noises, one of our two fledgling blackbirds snaffled by a bloody cat. Now if there is something that wants to culled if you ask me it's cats.

Apparently

"The most recent figures are from the Mammal Society, which estimates that the UK's cats catch up to 275 million prey items a year, of which 55 million are birds. This is the number of prey items that were known to have been caught; we don't know how many more the cats caught, but didn't bring home, or how many escaped but subsequently died."

Anglers, well some, think otter are a problem what chance is there of a cull of them?

Especially as the RSPB say

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.
It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season
We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

Doesn't the same apply to fish?

08:40 31.5.10

Update: The female is already collecting nesting material for the next brood, looks like a re-lining of the "old" nest.