Brading eagles

This being notice of what turned out to be an important tweeters outing.

We started off in an ordinary way, heading west along Quay Lane, just by Brading Church, and then swinging left to head north east towards St. Helens, following the made up track which used to be the railway, a track offering fine views of Brading marshes, once Brading haven. With the snap above looking roughly east, with Culver Down right.

Lots of birds to be heard, but very few to be seen. But we did have a fair number of dog walkers and cyclists. And then we had some serious tweeters, marked out by their large cameras and their large green telescopes & binoculars. We got talking to one of them, an older gentleman who sounded as if he might have been a genuine caulkhead, and he told us all about the Brading snowy eagles, what turned out to be a slip for the Brading white tailed eagles. But present on the Brading marshes and I was shown a picture by way of evidence.

Checking this morning I find that you have Bald eagles in the New World and White tailed eagles in northern parts of the Old World, including until recently the British Isles. I then get to the tweeting site at reference 2 and the photography site at reference 3. I learn that a small number of these birds have been reintroduced, with some success. With Dennis contributing the snap above: 'G274 [male] and G324 [female] have spent most of the past month together on the Isle of Wight'. With wing span an impressive eight feet.

And while a lot of people in the country are poor enough to qualify for free school lunches, it seems that we can afford to fit these birds with transponders, so we can track them on their extensive travels. Six colours in the snap above for the six birds.

Our informant also claimed a purple heron. While we could only manage a regular heron and an egret. Which last looked rather big to us, but was probably still a small egret rather than the rare large egret.

On the plus side, on the way back through the small housing estate between our cottage and the church, an estate which seems to attract lots of jackdaws, mostly on the grass, we came across this tree, alive with crows, probably a hundred or more. Didn't get to check whether they were rooks or jackdaws, but we had had rooks flocking in trees when we stayed on the other side of the village. See, for example, reference 4.

I expect the birds had flown by the time I got my telephone out, and zooming in only produces some black smudges which might be crows. Not exactly a confirmed sighting.

For lunch, to the 'Hungry Bear', run by a team fresh from successful residencies at various farm shops. They are to be found at reference 5, while there is notice of what came before at reference 6.

We were entertained by their take on a chalk board, made from a roll of industrial brown paper. Much more sensible than a real black board, not nearly so messy and apt to be a lot more legible. I associated to the elaborate chalk board which used to be written out every night at the 'Dark Horse', written out by a shapely barmaid standing on a chair. No doubt having spent most of the afternoon thinking about her wardrobe. See, for example, reference 7.

For starter we opted for prawn cocktail, sold as 'prawn and crayfish delight' or some such. Very good it was too. I associated to the people near Houston of reference 8. Where being Texas, things are both big and rather different.

BH opted for a cheese risotto for her main course, while I went for something called 'Chicken New York', being difficult to the extent of asking them to omit the cheese sauce. Still quite substantial. Let down by their not taking the end off the 'Little Gem' lettuce. Pretty good, but I made the mistake of eating the red bits in the salad, which turned out to be some sort of pepper. I survived.

Helped along with a spot of Sancerre, which was fine, but I thought a little dear. The search key 'domaine sylvain bailly terroirs sancerre' turns up reference 9 fast enough, so a real Terroir, probably nothing to do with the place in William IV Street, often noticed in these pages. Too many references already for a post of this sort, so curious readers will have to search. Not terribly challenging. The Bailly website looks vaguely familiar but search of the archive for both 'sylvain bailly' and 'bailly' fails to turn anything up. Perhaps that's how all mid-range French wine websites look?  Lots of arty shots across fields of grapes?

Pondered about dessert and after a couple of Malbecs (for a change), fell for a sundae (called something fancier) with two spoons. Just the ticket.

Bing knows all about Mira Bai, picked up somewhere along the way, with reference 10 being a sample. Bit late now so put aside for tomorrow.

All in all an excellent lunch. There were other customers and our waiter said that they had 100 booked for the musical evening to follow. He also said that some people came to the restaurant from the large island next door, which seemed to us to be a bit of a stretch for a meal out. Ryde maybe, but Brading?

We thought that they look to have got a better formula than Heima. A bit more mainstream without being ordinary, without being regular pub grub, which should translate into a decent amount of business. 

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_eagle.

Reference 2: https://www.roydennis.org/category/sea-eagle/.

Reference 3: https://www.ainsleybennettphotography.co.uk/. Does nature, but seems to be more interested in skies and stars.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/07/twit-log.html.

Reference 5: https://www.hungrybear.online/.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/heima.html.

Reference 7: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=ambrosia+dark+horse.

Reference 8: https://texasmesquitegrill.com/.

Reference 9: https://sylvain-bailly.com/.

Reference 10: https://feminisminindia.com/2018/03/09/mirabai-devotion-subversion-bhakti/.