Kick the Frenchman's Head 2012 (The Winchelsea Game)

Last year we were spectators, this year I joined in! For the history of the game click here. Here's this year's video, mixing footage from Tracy's camera at the side of the game and from my chest-mounted GoPro as well. Photos follow below...

The blue team (which I was on) planning our tactics - at the last minute, as we'd only just met!

Waiting for the first round...

Chase that head!

Here's my chest-mounted GoPro:

Good catch from the blue team!

Assorted scrums:

It's difficult to stay on your feet...

Note the moving goal bin!

Team photo, at the end of the game:

You can also view the photos on Flickr, and if you'd like to embed the video on another website, you can get the sharing code from its page on YouTube.

Mike

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Wild boar in the woods!

Today we saw a group of 6-8 wild boar in the woods! We'd gone up to have a wander around and do a few jobs, such as making a new mallet from a single piece of birch:

As we were walking to the car, parked in the wayleave, we heard the sounds of an animal moving in the woodland on the other side, but thought nothing of it, as there are plenty of pheasants, squirrels, etc. which can make quite a bit of noise...

We got in the car and set off, when Tracy shouted to stop. Between 6 and 8 boar were only were only about 10m from the car! As we were inside the car, they weren't immediately scared of of us, but were clearly on the move, so we hurriedly got Tracy's camera out and then wound down the window and snapped some pictures. As soon as the window was down though, they started to move off, so we only had a few seconds. They were behind the trees, so the autofocus didn't do a great job, but I've cropped and enhanced the pictures a bit so you can make out the boar in them:

I jumped out of the car and ran along the wayleave with the SLR to try and get more pictures, but the pigs were too fast...

Anyway, the rest of our visit was uneventful, everything is just very wet!

Yes - that's water coming up out of a hole in the last one - this happens quite a bit in the woods, with water uphill taking an underground route for a short distance before resurfacing further down.

Mike

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Flooding in Rye - sewage water lifting the manhole covers!

This video is from a couple of hours ago in Rye, note the bits of toilet paper coming up from the manhole cover! Nasty!

Mike

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Coppicing at the End of the World

As some people thought today  (21 Dec 2012) would be the end of the world, I thought I may as well go and coppice some trees. I guess it didn't end while I was in the woods?

Carrying on the the maintenance theme of this winter, I thought I'd coppice some of the wayleave, as it's grown a lot since we bought the woodland. It needs to be kept down for the wildlife - it's a really great spot for butterflies, etc. National Grid will cut it all eventually, but I got bored of waiting... There's also the advantages of getting some logs out of it and making it easier for people to drive along it without scratching their cars on overhanging trees.

Here's how it looked in 2008:

and here's a shot from this week looking the other way at that curve in the track:

To make life easier, I parked the car and trailer just up from where I was felling, and took the ends off the trailer, so it was easy to load up logs for immediate transport:

Here's a couple of views of the area after spending a few hours working on it:

I've left all the brash piled up, as there's plenty of space and it'll make a nice wildlife habitat:

Having moved the logs to a storage place, I also took the opportunity to collect some logs for use at home, where we've got through half of our firewood store now. The store at the wood is now slowly emptying...

I think we might burn a bit less this winter as I've done some draughtproofing - more on that later...

Mike

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Birds of prey at Eagle Heights

This weekend we went to visit Eagle Heights, where we saw some amazing birds!

We had a look at some of them sat inside first, though they all do get to go out and fly every day. The birds have been rescued from places, hand reared for captive breeding programmes or come from other places where they could not be kept any longer. I'll just list them with their names, and then get to the photos of them flying outdoors...

A Vulture:

A Martial Eagle:

An African Fish Eagle:

A Crowned Eagle:

A Bald Eagle (not because it's bald, but because it's black and white, or 'piebald'):

A Hooded Vulture:

A Bateleur Eagle:

A pair of White Tailed Sea Eagles (which can be found in the UK):

OK, so moving on to the outdoors display, where we were introduced to four birds and heard a bit about their history and how they live in the wild and in captivity.

First up was a Bald Eagle:

A large and powerful bird, and this one was completely tame.

But as soon as she was let go, she still wanted to stretch her wings first:

before watching from the distance for a minute:

But it wasn't long before she came swooping back...

...tempted by some food in a pond:

She then showed how tame she was by progressing through the audience!

Here's a short video...

After her came a hybrid falcon, part Peregrine and part something else - apparently these hybrids are often bred for commercial pigeon control, but this one had decided it couldn't be bothered hunting pigeons, so had come to live at Eagle Heights instead:

The handler showed us the falcon's skills by whirling round a rope with some food on the end of it - the falcon shot back and forth at about 60mph to try and catch it, and cut between people in the audience, clipping them with its feathers!

Eventually it got its target, and tucked into the food while sat on the handler's glove:

After that we had a Barn Owl, which was able to fly around incredibly quietly and slowly - ideal for spotting the small prey they hunt in the wild:

Last of was a Vulture, the same one we'd seen sat indoors earlier:

A very impressive bird when soaring around over us:

Though he did disappear down the hill after that, and waited in a field to be collected, due to laziness. Apparently he used to live in Tenerife, and would repeatedly fly from the top of the mountain down to the bottom and wait to be picked up - one time a bus driver recognised him and gave him a lift back up!

Anyway, as you can see, Eagle Heights is well worth a visit, but make sure you are there to catch one or more of the displays.

Mike

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