JGG500

  Winter Birding  2025/26 The most reliable rarity in Norfolk this winter has been the very smart male eastern black redstart which has exchanged the rocky snowline screes of central Asia for the admittedly nippy gardens and rooftops of Sheringham. A jaunty splash of colour on a grey day, it has done nothing for the public perception of birders as groups of hooded enthusiasts have haunted quiet suburban streets through the Christmas period and well into the New Year in search of the wind-tossed vagrant.    It had a very different appeal to the monochrome beauty of the black-winged kite which held court at Hickling Broad after moving across from the Ludham area. I saw the 2023 bird at some distance across the reedbeds from Stubb Mill so it was a delight to watch this individual go through its paces at closer range; making rapid circuits of the reeds, hovering at times, dropping down for prey and then perching haughtily on the tops of the larches, confirming the falcon...

David Bowie   I am not moved Easily to tears, But the loss, The sense of loss, Created and curated, Becomes the Lightning conductor, My eyes filming. Ten years that’s all. Played out On stage but  Disinterred daily. Silver screened. The man who never Fell to earth. But I, I can Remember.   10 th  January 2026 Bowie has always fascinated me, not in some all-pervasive or damascene way - I never met him and I never saw him play live - but as a presence, a significance, over the years which, at its natural end, generated a palpable awareness of loss. On a very basic level, I like his music - well, most of it - and play it a lot, but when you set it in the context of a restless creative intelligence, it is the mass of contradictions, comparisons and co-existences, and dare I say, changes, that set him apart as a man and a figure - embedded, like something glinting in the water - that are transformative. There is so much more with Bowie...