Travels Reboot: Drums and Fire

Clash of Drums



Emerging from the cordite cloud

It's a long time since I have posted to this blog. It faded away for a number of reasons, but now I'm back! I retired this week and will have more time to share some of my trips out.  I start with a massive expedition, as I travelled all of 3 miles to Central Milton Keynes to capture the first night of the Clash of Drums.



Flamethrowers maintain the performance space

In case you missed it, the Rugby World Cup has come to England this year. More specifically, it has arrived in Milton Keynes at the Stadium MK and the rest of the city is getting involved. A partnership between music venue The Stables and the Milton Keynes International Festival have brought French and Spanish Basque Drummers to join in the celebrations.

Challenge

Danbor Talka is a show put together by French group Les Commandos Percu and Basques Deabru Beltzak, in which the two companies "fight" their way through the streets to a show platform, where they perform a spectacular finale with additional lights and fireworks.



The show started in Lloyds Court and made its way along Secklow Gate, passing between the 2 parts of the Shopping Centre, and towards the Xscape building.


..and response

Pausing at various times, surging backwards and forwards they fought with sound and fire, to the great excitement of the crowds and occasional consternation of small children in the crowd some of whom were finding the loud noises a bit too much to bear.



Teams stalk by...

I was most impressed by the crowd control as space was made in the crowd by marching outriders carrying flame throwers.  OK, maybe not actual flame throwers, but certainly burners generating great streams of sparks and light. Nobody lingered too close to test the heat of the output.  They really should try these on the hills in the Tour de France and other grand tours, as the competitors might then get the space to race! (and come to think of it, they wouldn't get in spitting distance either!).



Group members, defined by their tribal make-up and costume stop at intervals to interact. They issue challenges to their opponents and fight out their combat with sound and fury, emerging from and retreating into a cloud of smoke and the strong evocative smell of cordite.
 Drumsticks become fireworks, fireworks become drumsticks and flashing lamps of varying sizes stun and confuse the watchers.



The finale begins

 With a flourish of fireworks, the teams regroup and march on, glaring at the bystanders and taunting their opponents with sound. Nearby streetlights have bee extinguished, adding to the atmosphere and enhancing the impact of the light show.
 One final stop at the junction by the Food Centre and the Xscape building for last street fight.
Crowds jostle for a prime position to see the action, children sit on parents shoulders, awed by the sights or cowed by the noise.
Finally the parade gathers one last time and trailed and flanked by the crowd, the Drummers turn into the Point Car Park and parade onto the stage.

 The stage show was vibrant with lights and fire and a variety of percussion instruments, played with sticks, beaters, fire sticks and lids, drumming on drums oil drums, hubs, barrels and
 a variety of other instruments including a large implement resembling and oversized Hawaiian guitar played with a large bottleneck and drumsticks. It made an amazing impact.

 The show drew to a close with a finale of rockets, Catherine wheels and handheld mortars.
After about an hour the show drew to a close with an encore as the drums paraded from the stage.  People reluctantly drifted away.  They probably dispersed quicker than the pall of cordite smoke, which seemed to follow me home. I could definitely smell it drifting though the car vents as I passed Oakgrove and Monkston.



fencing with the handheld mortars

 



Sunrise, Sunset

Sunrise

This entry was meant to go up on Saturday, but when I got home I discovered my PC data disk was completely full again, so I had to spend my editing hours sorting out the computer.  I hope it is now all sorted for another few months.  I fear a seriously major sort out is required though!
So: Saturday was a peerless January morning. I'd been in two minds about the walk, as I'd agreed to meet a friend at her house at 9am, but once I saw what he morning was like it was too good to pass up. I reckoned an hour round the north lake to get the sun rise, then a cuppa with Yvonne ... sorry Yvonne I was really late!
It was very cold, causing a mist to settle in the valley and drift across the lake.  The sun rise was crystal clear and the geese were already coming and going - greylag arriving and just a bit later, canada geese fidgeting around before finally, leaving.
I bumped into Keith (not surprising really - he always seems to be around in the mornings) and we walked round towards the hotel, where a variety of waterfowl were feeding - a pair of grebes were facing up as if thinking of a dance, then decided feeding was more important.  Then Keith spotted the first goosander.  There were 2 males and a female, wary as ever, paddling across the lake as soon as we stopped to look at them.  Mostly they were hanging with the Canada geese for camoflage - at least while the geese remained.
Keith then headed south and I went off for my appointement, walking round the hotel to watch the variety of birds still gathered there on my way.






Sunset

To make up for the shorter walk in the morning and to make the most of a lovely day I set out to Willen in the late afternoon to see what was roosting on the lake.  Temperatures has reached the heady heights of 4 degrees C but the first thing that was obvious was the extent of the ice across the lake, covered by a large varied roost of gulls, including one morose looking gang of what looked like lesser black backs.
The cormorants were returning to their roost, teal were squabbling along the reed edges - both beside the hide and also I realised along the edge of the island as the setting sun caught the bright yellow patches. 
Along the wader scrape there was a big flock of lapwing. My first count made it over 50, but birds kept arriving. They settled until the island goats breenged (great Scots word "To move in a rapid, devil-may-care fashion") along the shore and put them to flight.  This time I counted well over 80 flying near me  and there were more to the north - a nice thing to see.



As the sun was setting the temperature dropped sharply and I headed home, finding time to watch a flock of long tailed tits acrobatically hunting  in the bushes below me, and grab a quick shot of the disappearing sun.

Signs of Spring in January

View across the lake to the hotel

After a week of high winds and rain, Saturday turned out to be very calm and at least dry, if overcast at 8am when I set out. I headed to North Caldecotte first. Now that the rowing club is getting so busy, it's a fair bet that wildlife will be "sheltering" in the small bays round the lake.  As expected most birds were behind the hotel, where a good number of coots (as usual) scattered between gadwall, widgeon, mute swans, cormorants, mallard gulls, grebes and greylag. Surprisingly no Canada geese though!

Grebe-dancing

Male Goosander

There was a surprise though: a pair of great crested grebes were practicing their mating dance.  They didn't spend long - more like an orchestra settling in before a concert and running through a few remembered riffs as warm up. They soon returned to feeding. While watching them I caught a black and white flurry dash from the cover of the lakeside bushes - there was the male goosander that everyone had been talking about, but which had eluded me for a couple of weeks. 

All four Goosanders

Coots being Coots

 He is spectacular. I realised the reason for the flurry soon enough- he has paired up with one of the three females I'd seen over Christmas - and the other two were still hanging around - in hope it seemed!  They were a little wary of me - especially when I pointed my lens in their direction it seemed, but the two single females were determindly following him.

 As I moved along towards the weir a commotion set up in the lake. Winter truce appeared to be over and the male coots were being their usual combatative selves again. One fight led to another as males lined up to assert themselves, causing upset all round.

I passed round the weir and hotel to walk under the road bridge to the south lake. There was a chance that the diver might be around there - if he was still here. No such luck though. 

Kingfisher

There was one moment of comedy as a rower who was sculling the edge of the lake in a leisure trip rather than the more usual training runs from north to south. Rather than shooting the central piers, he was trying to row between the pier and the shore, but it appeared he hadn't realise the lake level was still a bit low ... I'm surprised his oar escaped unscathed as he collected the concrete floor of the bank.

Black headed gull regaining summer plumage

As I made my way south along the western bank of the lake I wasn't expecting to see anything exciting - the small birds in the reeds are too far away to photograph and most other birds seem to avoid it. I did discover where the canada geese were hanging out though.  However all was not lost - A low fast-flying blur darted along the lake and landed below me -and  I got my first recognisable shot of a kingfisher! normally all I ever get is the tail feathers as they head off!

 The south of the lake was relatively quiet for life in any location I could photograph them. I did notice one or two of the black headed gulls were regaining breeding colours however - yet another sign that the shortest day has passed and the weather is mild. Some Mallards were even a step further ahead and were actually mating too - a bit optimistic of them I thought!

Cormorant roost

By now it was nearly mid-morning and about a quarter of the cormorants had returned to the roost to dry their wings after their morning feed. The colony is never still - there are always some birds coming or going.

While there a greylag came flying in and was greeted by its mate with more bonding dancing with high and low neck posturing and lots of vocals. Spring is definitely on the minds of the birds, that's for sure, although in several locations the great crested grebes (juveniles?) were still hanging around in large winter flotillas.

Posturing greylag

I can't finish without adding the image of the very cooperative robin I met as I left the lake.  A really great morning walk all around.

Grebe flotilla

Got any food?

Earlier visitors

Back to work today after the holidays. I didn't get a chance to pop out in my lunchtime as the whole country was being battered by high winds and heavy rain.  However I had a chance to catch up with other wildlife enthusiasts in the office and see what they had seen. Locally the smew on the lake over Xmas was a highlight and so I thought I'd use the opportunity to recap the local rare visitors over winter and post up the images of the favourites ....

The Smew, visited over the Xmas break

The Great Northern Diver, temporary resident since November