Wildlife

As I write, Martyn is at his PC as well, editing his footage of last night's badger and fox visits to the back garden.  The previous night, we had two badgers at the tops of the steps, grunting and growling as they cleared the seed and peanut trays.  Often, when a badger is feeding, a fox will be waiting nearby, trotting in when the badger leaves to pick over whatever food it may have left.  Unlike the rather relaxed badgers, the foxes are distinctly jumpy, stopping feeding and peering and listening at the slightest sound or movement.  Equally jumpy are the herons, one of which visited us this morning.  When it started marching towards the pond, no doubt having selected a newt or a frog for breakfast, I made a distinct movement at the window, and it was off like a cork from a Blanquette bottle.

If we aren't skulking in darkened rooms watching wildlife, we're out on the terrace watching one of the new airliner types.  This morning we watched the British Airways A380 lumbering over on one of its familiarisation flights to Frankfurt.  I think it begins its long-haul career next week.  Norwegian are doing a similar routine with their new 787, flying it between Oslo and London while they get the hang of it.  We saw one from a distance last night, but this morning another flew directly over us.  It's very quiet in the approach, and the A380 was pretty discreet as well as it climbed through 12000 ft.  It would have been carrying nothing like a full load of fuel for its short hop to Frankfurt, so I imagine the engines weren't having to work too hard.  Quite a contrast to the noisy brutes of 40 years ago.  A British Airways 707 used to rattle me out of bed in the morning in my Putney days as it idled towards Heathrow, and the dear old Concorde was a conversation stopper, if only by reason of its deafening noise, even on final approach.  Talking of the latter, I twice felt and heard its double-tap sonic boom: once on a ferry between Portsmouth and Cherbourg, and again a year later on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Dakar.  Not having been warned to expect it, the very loud bangs just about scared us out of our wits.  This was soon after a number of DC-10s had crashed with dreadful casualty numbers.  When we left Rio, the Concorde was at the gate next to our DC-10's, and by the time we landed in Senegal, it had been and gone.  These days, the noise nuisance is more from the small Airbus airframe, I think, since they all make the same whining noise whichever engines are fitted.  I haven't heard one yet with the new wingtip extensions, but doubt if they'll make much if indeed any difference.  It's really only an issue in the summer when we have windows open at night: then we really notice that Gatwick is open all hours.