Monday, 11 February 2013

Top Gun

A few weeks back i was passing by Conningsby on a very grey cloudy day.  I thought I'd pop in to have a look at what was going on...

Our front line fighter ..the Typhoon aka the Euro fighter
Ship BW awaiting the call as a glint of sunshine breaks through the gloom
The fighters being prepped 
A grand sight, all lined up on the 'Pan' 
The pilots have taken their seat...soon it will be canopies down 
Taking his seat..
Final checks..

Two on board this one..rolling away

heading towards the runway..heat haze from the exhaust 
Away to who knows where, the ranges in Scotland or the valleys of Wales.. ? 
An early bird returns...his chute deployed 
as for the rest...it's full speed ahead and u and away into the Lincolnshire gloom...

A view from Frampton..

RSPB Frampton Marsh is my nearest RSPB reserve..and it's very good!  Just 25mins away it's very handy for popping along too to see what's about.  There are very large colonies of Brent Geese, Canada Geese and Golden Plover (thousands of each) all sharing the reserve with flocks of Lapwings, Swans and assorted ducks and geese including Tufted Duck, Coot, Moorhen, Goldeneye, Shelduck, Teal, Widgeon, Pintails etc etc.  Infact, you never know what your going to see as the reserves habitats include Reed Beds, Lagoons, Pasture, Farmland and then there is the 'Wash'.

Here's just a few of it's local inhabitants

A regular sight...large flocks of Lapwings

The unmistakeable sight of a Curlew in flight

A popular wader here..A Redshank

A silhoueted Redshank on a late Frampton afternoon
A Little Egret...pausing for thought

A juvenile Ruff, my first

A less than common Barnacle goose

Again, a first for me..a Corn Bunting

Now this pic has quite a rare bird on it, and obviously a first for me.  The bird third in from the right is a 'Richardsons Canada Goose' - a sub species of the Canada Goose.  You can see that it looks like a Canada Goose but is smaller, has a shorter beak and a grey chest.  This is a rare visitor to Frampton is is rare to Britain full stop.

A female Reed Bunting

A flight of Cormorants


Redshank, doing what Waders do...Wading!

A beautiful Yellowhammer ..photographed this weekend
A flight of Canada Geese over Frampton late afternoon

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

A Man walks into a bar..


An Essex girl is involved in a bad car accident.  A paramedic rushes to her aid. "Whereabouts are you bleeding from?" he asks.  "Well," says the girl, "since you ask, bleeding Romford"

Did you hear about the guy who lost his left arm and left leg in a car accident?  He's all right now.

Two cannibals are eating a clown.  One says to the other "Does this taste funny to you?"

A traffic cop pulls alongside a speeding car on the motorway and is amazed to see the blond behind the wheel knitting. The policeman cranks down his window and yells "Pull over!"  "No!" shouts back the blond "Scarf!"

A blind man is at the opticians with his guide dog.  Both are facing the eye test chart on the wall. The optician takes away the guide dog and replaces it with another guide dog and asks "Is that better or worse?"

What goes Click...is that it?  Click...is that it? Click ...is that it?  A blind man with a Rubiks cube

A Yorkshire man takes his cat to the vet to be neutered. "Is it a Tom?" asks the vet. "No, it's in this box" says the Yorkshireman

Man to waitress in a Chinese restaurant "This chicken is rubbery" Waitress: "Thank you sir"

Tom and Dick are playing Golf and Tom has brought his Yorkshire Terrier with him.  Every time Tom hits a good shot the Yorkshire Terrier stands on it's hind legs and gives him a round of applause.  "That's very impressive " says Dick "But what does he do when you hit a bad shot?" "He turns three or four somersaults" replies Tom "But it depends on how hard I kick him"

Harry to Doctor "I can't understand it, my wife is pregnant but we haven't had sex in a year" Doctor: "It's what we call a Grudge pregnancy - someones obviously had it in for you"

A Doctor is examining a young female patient.  He applies his stethoscope and says "Big breaths", "Yeth" replies the girl, "And I'm thtill only thixtheen"

Custers last words at the battle of Little big horn "I'll never understand these damned Indians, a couple of minutes ago they were singing and dancing..."

Have you ever imagined a world without hypothetical situations?

Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected become the expected?

Why is 'abbreviation' such a long word?

Why does 'monosyllabic' have five syllables?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

My wife constantly complains that i never listen to her, or something like that.

A customer is ordering food in his local Indian restaurant. "Waiter, what's this chicken tarka?" The waiter replies "It's like chicken tikka but a little 'otter"

Harry took his date to a very posh restaurant and ordered all the food in French.  Even the waiter was impressed - especially as they were in a chinese restaurant

and finally for now...Why did the Mexican shoot his wife?
Tequilla





Monday, 4 February 2013

The Red Arrows

The Red Arrows, based at RAF Scampton are into their Winter training at the moment.  Due to resurfacing work to the runway at Scampton they have relocated to RAF Cranwell, which is just around the corner from me, though Scampton isn't too far away.

The site of the Red Arrows is a common one in the skies around Lincoln but i decided to make the most of a clear winters day to get even closer to them so a took a quick trip round to Cranwell..

Four Arrows preparing for take off
this sortie was just the four

And off they go...

Clearing the tower and heading for Scampton

Returning from Scampton and making a flypast of Cranwell... Smokin!

A four man ship as they say, but the leader was left just keeping an eye on the other three

Flypast on a lovely hazy lincolnshire Winter afternoon

Not a bad shot even if I say so myself!

What fun!

One by one they peeled off...preparing for landing

The sun has caught Red 1 in the turn..

Just the Arrows in the vast sky...peeling off for home..and then there were two

Two seaters but just the one Pilot in this Arrow

Touch down, still smoking...

Two in this one...
End of sortie as the light fades...


Saturday, 26 January 2013

The Ghost of Coleby Grange

A few weeks ago whilst driving down the A15 towards Lincoln I spotted an old WW2 RAF Control Tower.  This was the Tower for RAF Coleby Grange.  I decided to pull in and go take a look.

Whilst walking around the site I took a few photo's then drove home and later that evening researched Coleby Grange on the Internet.  It turns out that this Tower is very haunted.  Many tales are told on the Internet about strange happenings occuring here at Coleby Grange.  Objects like small stones are thrown at people, objects left on the ground are moved, people report headaches (one RAF airman fell down the stairs of the tower and split his head open, he died from hs injuries), strange lights are seen, the noise of Merlin engines can be heard at night and some have reported seeing a lonely and distraught figure in the observation tower on the roof (reportedly this is the Controller who is full of grief at sending so many men to their deaths)

It wasn't until i got home that evening i reviewed the photo's I had taken...


The Control at Coleby Grange.  Still in good order after all this time.

Apart from the Tower there is little else to see.  There is a small piece of perimeter track and a blast wall from when it housed THOR missiles (our nukes) during the cold war.

Another view

The steps that claimed the life of an airman

No chance to access the Observation tower..

This would have been the view over the airfield
Then this picture was next!!!
What is it? Is it a Ghost?
There was nothing wrong with the camera.  This shot wasn't taken at the end but was in the middle of the range of photo's

The last photo above is very strange indeed.  There is no trickery.  This is exactly what one of the photos's looks like...
Tomorrow Ollie and myself are returning to Coleby Grange, we are to 'Ghost Hunt' and see what we can capture on Camera.....



The Heron

Last Summer I managed to capture a Heron in flight and coming in to land.  I took a series of photo's that captured the bird as it approached the hide i was in at Rodley Reserve..

I'd taken the camera off auto focus mode and manually adjusted the focus as the Heron came into land, I was quite pleased with the outcome..