David Preston

I loved it. Pity it's so far away. Then again, in view of the weather, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

A Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) perches atop a post surrounded by water. Its back is to us but its head is visible in profile.

The #BirdOfTheDay theme is #PerfectLighting. This cormorant (although overseas viewers might know it as a great cormorant), I think, fits the theme nicely.

#birds #photography

Must admit I skipped Bergen. Cut across from Lillehammer to Ålesund.

If you can, do.

Not so much that you fall off your perch, I hope.

Porsangerfjorden (Porsáŋgguvuotna or Porsanginvuono) in Northern Norway, looking approximately south east from the 'toadstool rest area'. In the foreground is the flat rocky shore. The water of the fjord is a deep blue and a headland protrudes from the right. In the far distance is the opposite shore of Norway's fourth longest fjord.

Was looking to see if I had a #Stunday image to share and found this one of Porsangerfjorden in Norway last summer, taken on a Sunday, on my phone, when I parked up for the night after visiting Nordkapp.

#photography #landscape #seascape #Norway

Four Greylag geese (Anser anser) walking in line through marshland

Today's #birdoftheday theme is #FourOrMore, so here are four Greylag geese playing 'follow my leader'.

#birds #photography

It's beautiful in summer. Well, I suppose the scenery is wonderful any time, but good weather always helps. 🙂

There's (in my experience, at least) nowhere like it on earth. I probably won't drive up there again, but how was the cruise experience?

Serene landscape/seascape shot of a silhouetted low island in front of distant islands in the Lofoten Islands chain, themselves partially obscured by haze.

Quiet early morning scene in the Lofoten Islands last August.

#photography #landscape #seascape #Norway #Lofoten

…and Presiding Officers & Poll Clerks have to take a Declaration of Secrecy before the poll, which they take very seriously.

It might have all changed since I was involved, but it all seems a bit rum to me.

…be able to do this.

I suppose a Returning Officer might allow e.g. UN observers, but I think there would need to be a specific consent in place and the PO would need to be informed in advance.

There are procedures in place for the PO to help eg. a blind voter, but these instances are recorded…

…and are not allowed inside the Polling Station, but a tolerant Presiding Officer might allow them inside the building.

Presiding Officers have the authority to instruct a Police officer to arrest a suspected wrongdoer (for personation or whatever). This is unusual under UK law - for a civilian to…

Notes

This is/was UK and as already stated, long ago.

'Polling Station' is a very specific term and doesn't necessarily refer to the whole building, but more likely a single room or space within a room.

Tellers and other people working on behalf of political parties etc have no official status…

Long time since I was a Presiding Officer (40+ years), but unless rules have changed, only people who should be inside a Polling Station are

Returning Officer & their staff (PO & PC)
Voters
Police

Candidates & their Agents tend to call in and are tolerated

So what were these herberts doing there?

You might very well be right. As a life long labour supporter, I just hope they pick the right replacement.

How ever you spin the Gorton & Denton result, 66.1% to Green + Labour vs 30.6% to Reform + Tories is an encouraging sign that the right can be shown the door.

Congratulations to the Greens 💚 and 🖕 to Reform.

And there's still time for Starmer to give his head a wobble.

Fake Allister Heath clickbait headline - "By embracing 4-4-2, the Conservatives signed their own political death warrant"

More fun than it has any right to be.

Even in formation!

Got to go back to 1962-63 since we had a winter like that. That one was especially brutal.

It's been quite mild here in NW England for a few weeks & the forecast is for either side of 11℃ (51℉) for the next couple of weeks. We can sometimes have a cold snap in March though. The two photos were taken very close to the shore so it's always milder there. Go back 100 years & it was the beach.

Wow, that's early.

It's almost completely unheard of here, to get such low temperatures on the coast. I'm about 20 miles from the west coast and even over that distance there is a difference, the nearer the sea you get. Only once in my recollection (and I was born in 1957) have I seen ice on the beach.

A gull in flight in the foreground, with the RAF Red Arrows display team flying in formation and trailing red, white and blue smoke in the background.

Today's Alt theme for #BirdOfTheDay is #Gulls, so here's a bit of fun - a gull being photobombed by the RAF Red Arrows.

Well, it was at last year's Blackpool Air Show, so maybe it was the other way round.

#birds #photography

Indeed. The Gulf Stream brings us milder conditions. Nowhere in the UK is more than 70 miles from the sea. Even the west coast of Norway (way farther north than here) remains ice-free all winter for the same reason.

Nothing like that here, ever, and we are getting on for 10 degrees farther north than you. We are about the same latitude as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

That kind of night time temperatures would be maybe once in 10 or 15 (or more) years here. I think this winter just coming to an end, the coldest might have been -4℃ for a couple of nights and a handful just scraping below 0. Rarely all that cold in winter and rarely all that warm in summer.

14℃ (57℉) here in NW England tomorrow. (And raining, but hey.)

Black-headed gull in flight, flying left to right. It is showing its winter plumage, with a pale head.

Black-headed gull perched on a depth marker post, looking left to right. It has got almost all of it summer plumage, its head being almost completely black apart from a small patch of pale feathers above its bill.

Two black-headed gulls today. The first, in flight, shows the winter colouration with just a dark spot behind the eye, while the second is starting to get the black head for which it is named, just a small patch above its bill yet to turn.

#birds #photography

Daffodil flower

Early dandelion flower

Today - Spring on its way?

#flowers #photography