Christine's walking & birds blog

Unable to have a walk at Ardmair (where all I could see was a distant, storm-tossed great northern diver), I drove back to the harbour and sat in my car watching the gulls. An Iceland gull landed quite close so I got out and took a picture in pouring rain.


I'm fed up with car birding - I want a good long walk. Once upon a time, I never minded bad weather because if it was too bad for optics and birding, I just went out for a run. Now that a cranky knee has put a stop to that activity, I cannot help recalling a day when I was out walking and birding down south and was joined for a while by a male birder. A jogger went by, and the birder looked at her and remarked to me that he didn't like to see women running - strangely overlooking the fact that I'm a woman. Oddly enough, his attitude rankles more now that I can't run - I would give anything to be able to lope off on my old 6-miler, relishing my fitness and my freedom, utterly indifferent to the opinions of men.

Bad news: A tufted puffin turned up in the Faroe Islands a few days ago - and was promptly shot. 

Bad news: It was the last day for our MEPs in the European Parliament yesterday. There were tears because we're going, and a singing of Auld Lang Syne. There were gracious words from Michel Barnier and Ursula von der Leyen. There was regret from the Green MEP Molly Scott Cato.

Then Farage took the floor, and all graciousness and regret ended with triumphant gloating from him, Widdecombe, and other small-minded Brexit party MEPs as they waved Union Jacks - thereby deliberately breaking a rule of the parliament. Farage was cut off before he'd finished talking which was satisfying, but I really wanted to say to the Chairwoman, Mairead McGuinness, "Sorry that you had to deal with these mannerless thugs." And I'm sorry most of all that they're English.