This Clouded Yellow is the first I have seen this year and in fact the first I have seen for several years. They are a medium-sized, butterfly. It is a migrant species that fly here from North Africa and southern Europe. They appear in small numbers most years, but occasionally turn up on mass.
Our local Little Egrets have found a new way of fishing I have been watching these beautiful Herons for several years on Meon Shore but only in recent weeks, have seen them on a slack tide standing on the wooden sea groin post fishing. Normally they wait until low tide to fish at the waters edge.
Sitting on the beach on Tuesday morning around Calsholt spit came the Paddle Steamer Waverly making speed towards the Isle of Wight. Every time I see this paddle steamer I think of the Section in H G Wells’ book The War of the Worlds when HMS Thunderchild a Royal Navy warship sacrifices herself by ramming two tripods in order to protect the evacuation fleet including a paddle-steamer off the Essex coast.
PS Waverley is the last seagoing passenger-carrying paddle steamer in the world. Built-in 1946, she sailed from Craigendoran on the Firth of Clyde to Arrochar on Loch Long until 1973. Bought by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society and restored to her 1947 appearance and now operates passenger excursions around the British coast. I did a trip on her in 2015. {see link}
A Paddle Steam along the coast. | REFLECTIONS ON MY WORLD (wordpress.com)
She has been listed on the National Historic Fleet by National Historic Ships UK as “A vessel of importance”.
Wordless Wednesday.
At a 1917 HM Seaplane training school and commissioned as HMS Daedalus a Royal Naval air service base in 1939, it was the busiest airfield on the South Coast of England in 1944 on D-Day. {The airport remains and is known as Solent Airport.} Today on the front of the site at Lee on Solent overlooking the Solent where the seaplane ramp runs down to the sea is The Hover Craft museum. The museum dates back to 1988.
The first practical design for hovercraft was a British invention dating back to the 1950s. The idea of the modern hovercraft is most often associated with Sir Christopher Cockerell he built and tested several models of his hovercraft design in Somerleyton, Suffolk, during the early 1950s.
The Hovercraft museum has over 50 crafts ranging from small one-person crafts to the largest commercial car-carrying hovercraft ever built.
Princess Anne SRN4 MK3. 300tones over 55 metres long can carry 418 passengers and 60 cars. Built-in 1969 she is the only remaining example of this mammoth hovercraft which was used to cross the English Channel.
SRN4 car deck.
Passenger Lounges.
21 ft propellers were a world record!
SRN4 cockpit Hovercraft travel is a flight deck the person in charge is a pilot.
Another large Hovercraft at the museum is the BH7 built for the Navy in 1969 she flew to the Artic Cycle and back.
Some of the other craft in the museum.
The knot is a medium-sized, wader a bit larger that a Dunlin {see picture 5}. They migrate to the UK in very large numbers during winter from their Arctic breeding grounds. Knots eat invertebrates, molluscs and crustaceans which they find by probing their bills in the mud and sand; special sensory organs in their bill tips help them to detect buried prey in a similar fashion to the way echolocation works in bats. For me, although not the 1st time I have seen Knots yesterday was the first time I was able to get some pictures of this bird.
UK wintering population:320,000 birds.
Today Calsholt Castle was open so I could get some good views of Southampton Water from the castle roof. This small artillery fort was built by Henry VIII to defend the entrance to Southampton Water. It served as an RAF and Military base and was active during and between the wars.
There were times in history when a boat sailing past the fort flying the French flag would have had the guns of the fort firing at it!
Wheatear sitting on the fence at Meon Shore.
Wordless Wednesday.
Back in the 1990s, I visited HMS Excellent originally Whale Island in Portsmouth Harbour.
While there I saw the Royal field gun carriage. On the carriage is a brass plaque which reads.
THIS
FIELD GUN CARRIAGE
PRESENTED TO H.M.S. EXCELLENT BY
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
WAS USED
ON 2ND FEBRUARY 1901 AT THE FUNERAL OF
HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA
MANNED IN EMERGENCY BY SEAMEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY
UNDER THE COMMAND OF LT. THE HON. A.D.E.H. BOYLE R.N. & S/LT P.L.H. NOBLE
ALSO ON 20TH MAY 1910 AT THE FUNERAL OF
HIS MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII
MANNED BY SEAMEN OF H.M.S. EXCELLENT
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN R.G. TUPPER A.D.C. R.N.
ALSO ON 28TH JANUARY 1936 AT THE FUNERAL OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
MANNED BY SEAMEN OF H.M.S. EXCELLENT
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN A.J. POWER R.N.
ALSO ON 15TH FEBRUARY 1952 AT THE FUNERAL OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE VI
MANNED BY SEAMEN OF H.M.S. EXCELLENT
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN R.F. ELKINS O.B.E. A.D.C. R.N.
ALSO ON 30TH JANUARY 1965 AT THE FUNERAL OF
SIR WINSTON LEONARD SPENCER CHURCHILL K.G. O.M. C.H.
MANNED BY SEAMEN OF H.M.S. EXCELLENT
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN A.M. POWER M.B.E. R.N.
ALSO ON 5TH SEPTEMBER 1979 AT THE FUNERAL OF
ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN
K.G. G.C.B. O.M. G.C.S.I. G.C.I.E. G.C.V.O. D.S.O.
MANNED BY MEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY
UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN R.K.S. BETHELL O.B.E. R.N.
Royal Horse Artillery in January 1901 were tasked with the final phase of the funeral of Queen Victoria. This was to move her coffin from the railway station at Windsor to Windsor Castle. As the coffin was placed on the gun carriage the horses who had been waiting for some time on the snow-covered ground and with the noise of the train panicked and reared up. It looked as though the coffin would be toppled off the carriage. Naval ratings were ordered to take the lead, the sailors grounded arms and formed fours at the head of the cortege. Improvised drag ropes were brought in and pulled Queen Victoria to her destination. The horses were unharnessed and moved safely out of the way. Another story tells how the Naval ratings took over when a pin broke and the horses could not pull the carriage.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II has made me think of my visit to Whale Island and seeing the Royal field gun carriage all those years ago. I understand it will be used on Monday for the Queen’s funeral pulled by Royal Naval Ratings as they have done for all State funerals since Queen Victoria’s.
Continued Reflections from my World. 