The gulls of St Modwen

Gulls regularly line the roof of St Modwen Church in Burton.  They seem to find it a good look-out for the adjacent River Trent.

Burton is of course hundreds of miles from the sea, but the Trent is navigable all the way up to the East Coast (yes, this surprised me too)... so maybe these gulls floated down from the North Sea.  Hmm.  Perhaps.

Incidentally, St Modwen's parish district now consists of ... basically ... the small island in the middle of the Trent river. Now that is weird.

Obstinate ducks

Why these three ducks chose to sit in the middle of this road is beyond me.  On one side they had the lovely pub duck-pond that makes The Boar at Moddershall such a nice place to go on a sunny afternoon, and on the other (through the hedge) a small farm pond.

Cars were having to swerve to go round them, so I tried to shoo them to the pond.
But they just kept waddling back.  To exactly the same place.

Pelicans in the snow

You don’t often see pelicans in snow. Their natural habitat is warmer regions than our own. You can’t help feeling they are a bit bewildered by the white-stuff.

However, they are a great attraction (especially at feeding time) at Blackbrook Zoo, which is in the wilder parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands.
Sadly, the zoo, which specialises in exotic birds, has had lots of problems with the recent freezing temperatures, so it is temporarily closed. Should be back open in the next few days, I hope.

Generally, the snow is slowly receding from the ground now.

LINK: Blackbrook Zoo

Peacock on a roof

The bright blue plumage of a peacock is a welcome sight in these gloomy end-of-November days. This particular bird is perched on the roof of a garden shed in Tutbury. At the time, he was looking askance at a cat below.

I suppose he lives in this garden... but he may have been passing through. It's possible.

Menace of the birds

The Alfred Hitchcock film of The Birds was a brilliantly scary affair.

Whenever I see birds gathering on a roof, I'm reminded of it.  Good old Hitchcock.

Migrating birds

Looking spookily like the birds in the Hitchcock film of the same name, these birds collect on a roof, gathering themselves for the day they finally take the big decision to migrate off south for the winter.
It's a gloomy sight. It means winter is on the way...

I also saw the first Christmas cards on sale a few days ago - another sign of approaching winter!