Gheluvelt Park Friends

The Friends of Gheluvelt Park have a web site on gheluveltfriends.org.uk

Tour of Britain at Worcester

, the first I have blogged, of the tour of Britain passing along Sidbury. Well, the video doesn't seem to work, so here's an ordinary picture.

Peregrine Falcon

A pair of Peregrines has been nesting on St Andrews Spire (called The Glovers Needle) in Worcester this year, and they have been well publicised since the young departed the nest. I looked through the RSPB's telescopes a couple of times when one of them was on the Cathedral Tower, but this time I was much closer and was able to snap it with my 10x lens. The picture is on Flickr

Google Maps overhead aerial photos

Google Maps now has better detail in its aerial photos of Worcester. This links to Fort Royal Park playground. Push the map around to see other places. The photos are pretty old. I worked that out by identifying my neighbour's cars!

Sunset over Worcester

Sunset over Worcester
Originally uploaded by >kr8<

Looking at the Flickr photos in the Worcester group, I found this excellent sunset by kr8. Check it out for rare butterflies too, though not in Worcester.

More Flickr Photos

Ok, so I have a flickr account now, too.

Great Pictures of Worcester

AJK Photography has a really good Flickr site with 16 sets of Worcester photos as of today, including Fort Royal, fireworks and floods. Not only that, but sets for Malvern, London, Nature, Buildings and Churches. The photo here appears with his permission.

1888 Large Scale Maps on the Net

Maps of Worcestershire at various large scale are available and easy to navigate at the British History Online site. I did try putting a sample here, but they have some way of preventing it!

Latest on the Park Animals

The May Wildlife List has a few new entries. A Great Spotted Woodpecker pair nested in the oak tree in the centre of the park and raised some offspring this month. They all appear to have fledged now. Details from and your details to Duncan Sutcliffe xxduncan@sutcliffeinsurancexx.co.uk (leaving out the xx's which are there to help prevent junk emails)as usual. I haven't got a suitable photo to hand at present, but I've taken some elsewhere last week. When I've downloaded it from my camera, I'll post it here.
Update Later: My SD Card was faulty and I managed to lose all my pictures (around 200) from a trip to Lundy Island and Watersmeet, Lynmouth. Talk about the one that got away! The Song Thrush picture was taken in Craven Arms at Easter.
Bat
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Chaffinch
Coal Tit
Crow
Dunnock
Feral Pigeon
Goldfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Grey Squirrel
Herring Gull
House Mouse
House Sparrow
Magpie
Mallard
Pied Wagtail
Robin
Song Thrush
Starling
Swallow
Wood Pigeon

Lots of Visitors

I had no idea how many people looked at this blog until someone suggested I put a counter on it. I haven't used counters on my sites for a few years, because I found them unreliable. They overcount when someone, usually me editing, is repeatedly refreshing the page. And they undercount when someone on a big system, like Worcestershire County Council who have thousands of computers, looks at a page which is held in a cache. That's a piece of disc space that holds a copy of my page so that the County's computer doesn't keep having to download it from the Internet.

Anyway, I put one on this site and as you can see, about 70 a month are looking in. Including me about 8 times, I think, but excluding the multitudes avidly reading the site in County libraries and the corridors of power!

Some of you may not know that you can use computers free at any public library in the county, and most others in England and Wales. After all, you are reading this on your own computer, probably. Well, it's good to send an email home when you are not there, even one to yourself when you've got a file or digital photo from somewhere. Also, you can get lots of stuff for free that you would have to pay for at home, notably Ancestry.com, that great collection of family history information.

You can still borrow books from there too.

Wildlife Update April

Duncan Sutcliffe has sent me the list of birds and other creatures spotted in and around Fort Royal Park in April 2007. A good list this month, because of the extra activity of the nesting birds, the extra care of the wildlife watchers and the large numbers of visitors swelling the popularity of the park.
Bat
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Coal Tit
Crow
Dunnock
Feral Pigeon
Goldfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Herring Gull
House Sparrow
Magpie
Mute Swan
Robin
Song Thrush
Starling
Wood Pigeon
Wren

For a change, the pictures are taken by me in Fort Royal Park. The bird is a carrion crow: I think there are only two inhabiting the park, though a flock of rooks comes through occasionally, and I have seen jackdaws there in the past, but not recently. I don't know anything about insects so it isn't on the list: I photographed this one to show how good my camera is at closeups, and because it kept still better than the birds. It was on one of the bottle banks, which explains the odd background.
Finally an appeal. I haven't got a good picture of it yet, but there is a sparrow-like bird that has been around all year in Upper Park Street, particularly active around 9 in the morning this time of year. It has white underwings which show on its tail when resting and are very noticeable in flight. It always flocks with the sparrows. Do sparrows have mutations like this? You don't need binoculars to see it, and I'm sure the residents, including me, won't appreciate them either!

Wildlife Register

Creative Commons copyrighted image by Steve Wilde and taken in Marlow, Bucks.

Duncan has kindly sent me the Park wildlife register for the last few months. Here's a list of the species seen.

Bat, Black Headed Gull, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Cormorant, Crow, Dunnock, Feral Pigeon, Great Tit, Grey Squirrel, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Magpie, Mallard, Mute Swan, Pied Wagtail, Robin, Song Thrush, Sparrowhawk, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

The list is detailed month by month, so Duncan wants all your sightings, not just new species. I can add Coal Tit which I saw in the corner near the Mission Hall apartments on Saturday 31 March.

Wildlife in the Park

Last year on one Saturday afternoon a group of over 30 volunteers turned out to help with gardening, litter collectiing and hanging bird boxes made by pupils from the Royal Grammar School. The event atrracted lots of publicityin the local papers and was a real success. Even though it was late in the year to hang bird boes, at least three of the eleven were definitely used to rear young, and possibly another four, which gives encouragement for this year.
The bird boxes and flowerbeds have enhanced the wildlife attracted to the area and there are suggestions to icorporate more changes to assist wildlife. One possibility is to set aside areas in the park that will be allowed to grow wild, attracting diffrent animals, insects and plants.
For those interested in wildlife, a register is being kept of animals and birds spotted in the park or seen from the park and is posted on the notice boards. Please report your sitings by email to duncan sutcliffe xxduncan@sutcliffeinsurancexx.co.uk (leaving out the xx's which are there to help prevent junk emails). You don't need to be an expert as even a 'probable sighting is welcome. A couple of more interesting animals recorded recently include a number of sightings of a bird of prey that may be a sparrowhawk and sightings of bats as late as October and as early as February. The picture is from Gary Cox's web site and is not local.

The View From Fort Royal

I've put a new set of photos on Picasa, taken when the daffodils were first blooming and the crocuses were at their best. Thank you to the lady who was concerned that I had collapsed on the path. In fact I was lying down to check that I had the Cathedral framed nicely by the daffodils! I've seen several others lying down to get this shot but no-one so far as I know got one with crocuses in the foreground. Can we have some planted more conveniently for next year please?

Fort Royal Park Gardening Group

The Friends of Fort Royal have a gardening group which keeps the beds in the Park looking good throughout the year, and does a regular litter pick. Anyone can join in by turning up on the first Saturday of the month at 2pm. Here's a picture of Dilys and Evan with some of the plants they care for.

Photos on Picasa Web Albums

Please have a look at my Picasa Web Albums with photos of Worcester and around, the 2007 Eclipse and lots more.
Here's a link to the Eclipse set

2007 Eclipse

Panoramic View from Fort Royal Park

This is just a small image to entice you to look at the much bigger panorama of Fort Royal Park on one of my other sites www.fortroyal.org.uk/FortRoyalPano.html
But it's a larger file than Blogger will take - 2 Mb - so probably don't if you are still paying by the minute!