Seamer Road Mere, Scarborough

A favourite Sunday afternoon walk! We have spent the last two Sunday afternoons at the Mere walking round and feeding the birds. It is so much nicer thanPeasholm Park, which is a stangant, commercialised, ugly blot on the landscape. It is full of feral pigeons and grey squirrels with a smaller variety of birds than at the Mere. Also the water is stagnant and black as hell.

Some photos taken yesterday at the Mere:


A resident Chinese goose


A coot with young. Coots will kill their own chicks


A family of geese


A goose with half of its top beak missing! It was able to feed OK though









Some views of the Mere


A swan on the Mere

As a kid I used to love going to the local pond or river with my fishing net and jam jar to see what I could catch - usually water snails, pond skaters, tadpoles and sticklebacks. The freshwater environment is my favourite natural environment, I would probably have been better doing freshwater biology instead of marine biology at university.

Transylvania

I suppose this article I'm posting a link to has to be one of the most interesting travel articles I've read in ages.

I don't intend to go to Transylvania, but the way it is described in this article makes you think it would be worth a visit!

Read it here.

The Mighty Deltic

The Mighty Deltic in Pickering

Readers may wonder why I titled this latest post "The Mighty Deltic". Well, the answer is simple.

Today we went to Pickering, and it was Diesel Gala weekend on the North York Moors Railway (visit them here) Usually the trains on here are steam hauled, with a few exceptions, but this weekend is given over to the diesels.

If I had known about the special event, I would have had my camera to post some video, but I didn't so I'll have to post some photos taken on my Mum's mobile phone instead :-)

The one engine I had chance to photograph was a huge green Deltic just before it was attached to the carriages in order to leave Pickering. Seeing these superb locos made me think of the vile, horrible, cold things we have to put with on our railways now - namely the Class 185 built in Germany by Siemens, it is a foul train, putting it mildly, but the main services from our local station are operated by these monstrosities. I wish it were the Deltics operating from here instead!

Close up of the Deltic's front

The Deltic was built for use on the East Coast Main Line - however it was replaced on this route by the Inter City 125 in the 1970s.

The Deltic leaving Pickering station

There is a Deltic Preservation Society for those who like the Mighty Deltic, they can be visited here.