So, after a wet and windy January spent in the office finishing off my report, I then had to condense my work in to a 15 minute talk to be presented at the Forbes Conference. The conference was an excellent insight in to all the interesting marine work going on on the island, and a great opportunity to meet people in the field. It's wonderful that on such a small island there is so much brilliant marine research going on. It was also interesting to hear about the life of Douglas born Edward Forbes who, despite unfortunately now being best known for his mistaken azoic hypothesis, conducted some brilliant marine biological work. Many of his texts were accompanied by doodles of sea life, and he even wrote a song about dredging!
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| Conference poster |
With all that over I have a little more time on my hands and am able to take advantage of some breaks in the wintry weather to explore a little more. One afternoon, shortly before sunset, I headed towards the north of the island to check out an impressive gathering of birds. A huge congregation of rooks and jackdaws could be seen filling the evening sky before settling down to roost for the night in one of the islands plantations. They were tricky to photograph in the fading light, and hard to do justice to the scale. But the sight, and sound, was a great spectacle.
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| Lots and lots of birds |
I think it won't be too long until the leaves start to appear on the trees again, though On a drive around there were signs of spring to be seen. Plenty of snowdrops lining the verges, and even clumps of daffodils appearing, though no distinctive yellow yet. I'm fairly sure I spotted a merlin perched on top of a telephone pole, but with a car on my tail I couldn't slam the brakes on to stop and check, unfortunately.
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| Bare trees, for now |
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| Daffodils on the way |
The winter season still has a few shows to put on, with strong winds and high tides making for some spectacular waves. I claimed a spot looking on to Peel Castle and watched the spray crashing in. Despite the very cold wind, the backdrop of the castle provided some great context for the size of the waves splashing up the beach and over the wall.
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| A big splash obscures Peel Castle |
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| A wave crashes up Fenella beach |
