Weekend snapshots on the 28th. of Ramadan

We’d a very easy, lazy weekend. I was still recovering from my misbehaving tummy. Thank goodness, it was back to normal. I spent the morning doing the laundry and checking out the garden. Only 9 sunflower plants instead of 11 survived the windy weather and they were in the process of flowering. I think mine will be the last to flower in this area. Better late than never I guess.

Meanwhile, these flowering Echinacea (pronounced eh-kin-AY-sha)purpurea were brightening up the garden. I bought these plant from the kitchen garden of the Charlecote Park during last year’s heritage weekend. It was a very pretty, happy flower and the bees  were loving it. Do you know that taking the herbal remedy echinacea can more than halve the risk of catching a common cold? Does smelling the flower count?

Later in the evening Babe wanted to check the geese at Brandon Marsh again. We missed them, again. They’d already arrived and were grazing by the mudbanks and sunbathing in the evening sun. The snipes were still on the island opposite the East Marsh hide. It was quite difficult to see them as they were so well camouflaged.

A twitcher alerted us to a buzzard that was sleeping on the dead tree opposite the Carlton Hide. We quickly made our way and thankfully, it was still there, still asleep.  A pity it was too far for me to get a good photograph. But, this Common Sandpiper was feeding right in front of us for a good photo shot.

There were still lots of butterflies enjoying the evening sunshine. They were on a feeding frenzy among the Buddleias. We weren’t too pleased that nearly half of these butterfly-bushes had been hacked by the conservation team. Why oh why are they doing the cleaning-up soo early? The season was not even over yet. 

We’d a big surprise as we were driving through Binley. We’ve driven through here for the past 4 years had never seen this before. Cars were parked on both sides of the road for nearly 2 miles. There must be something going on on at the Brandon Stadium.

This stadium was home to the National Championship-winning speedway team, the Coventry Bees. Speedway??? No idea what it was. Babe said it involved a motorcycle  using only one gear and have no brakes and racing on the shale-grit "dirt track", under floodlights at night. Hmm…I did asked Babe whether we could attend one…Couldn’t wait :-)

On Sunday morning, we made an early trip to Draycote Water. It was drizzling when we arrived but we plodded on.  We met a few twitchers who were on the look-out for the Curlew Sandpiper  which was seen there a few days back. Unfortunately, we missed it.

We saw hundreds of geese feeding by the mudbanks. Now we know where the geese from Brandon were feeding/roosting. As we continued our walk in the rain, we saw a flock of Little Ringed-Plovers and another lovely surprise, Dunlins. They, too, were busy feeding along the mudbanks and was so well-camouflaged among the rocks.

We walked a little bit further and saw the waters becoming more cloudier, coloured a shade of slimy green. This later will result in unruly odours and if left untreated, will create disturbances in the waters natural ecosystem. I hoped it won’t come to this to such a beautiful place. We left early as the rain began to get heavier.

Yesterday, the fire alarm went off again. This is the second time in a fortnight. We were huddled outside in the freezing cold and then it began to rain. The alarm went off for quite sometime and I was wondering why the fire-engine didn’t pay us a visit. Later, I found out that they had attended to so many false alarms in the university. The students have purposely set the alarm off. What a stupid, stupid childish act!!! And the university have to pay a penalty each time.

Just found out that England had maintained their 100 per cent start to Euro 2012 qualifying as goals from Rooney, Johnson and Bent defeated Switzerland 3-1 at a sodden St Jakob Park. C’mmon England!!! You can do it and sans Lampard, Terry and Ferdinand.