What the Commuter Saw : 3rd & 4th May 2016

A mixed bag of things from yesterday and today.  Emerging from the house this morning, I was confronted with a pretty wild sky – cirrus going through the spin cycle
(As ever, click on image to see full size, then browser back arrow to close):
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Yesterday, the sky began with fair-weather cumulus on the Abellio Greater Anglia train journey from Colchester to Stratford, as here, over New Hall School just to the east of Chelmsford:
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…but things clouded over towards evening, so as I was waiting at Galleon’s Reach DLR station, things were rather grey, but then the male kestrel turned up – and a close examination of the photo suggests that it has a wire or something tangled round its leg (I don’t think this is a falconry jesse from an escaped bird) – so, animal welfare concerns!
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Today, despite the wild morning sky, things remained blue and calm all day, so the views from the train of the Marks Tey oil-seed rape fields, the oak tree pair just after Hatfield Peverel, the view up to Galleywood and the oil-seed rape field looking towards Billaricay, all looked full of the joys of summer. Even the wind from the train window wasn’t too chilly today:
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Once on the DLR from Stratford, the bright sunlight lit up the DLR carriages in the glass walls of the Newham Council offices beside the Royal Albert Dock (with a little bit of help from Photoshop):
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Then the large mirror on the platform end at Galleon’s Reach DLR gave lovely swirly images without any help from Photoshop:
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Standing waiting on Platform 10 of Stratford Station for the train to Colchester, a goldfinch was twittering and warbling for all it was worth while perched on the overhead lives above the commuters, giving them all a subliminal sense of pleasure, I suspect (in Japanese metro stations they play birdsong), but not one of them looked up at the bird just above them:
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Just a sunset over the oil-seed rape fields at Marks Tey to finish – again, rather a wild cirrus sky but this time streaky rather than swirly:
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Author: Richard Lindsay

Having worked for 20 years in the UK statutory nature conservation agencies as Peatland Specialist in the Chief Scientist Team, I then moved to the University of East London where I ran the nature conservation degrees for several years. Now I mainly undertake research and support peatland conservation activities, including the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, within UEL's Sustainability Research Institute. I also paint.

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