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The ebb-and-flow of the Ice Ages and Interglacial periods over the past two+ million years has resulted in some species extinction as the climate change was too rapid for natural speciation to take place. Woolly mammoths are a well-known example. Are we living in a current mass extinction era? Despite the efforts of global organisations […]

Apologies for temporary lapse – continuing, but broadening, the swift theme. From the evidence of fossil remains studied it seems that the modern breeds of swift have evolved from similar ancestors which survived, or benefitted from, the ‘Eocene-Oligocene extinction event’ some 30 million years ago. The history of the evolution of life-forms on Earth has been impacted

The little bit of thought I gave to the blogs on Swallows and swifts led me to think about the broad issue of taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science of classification, a thing which can be applied to any activity but which is often interpreted as the scheme(s) of classification of organic  life-forms – plants and

A note to compliment the last blog but unfortunately no photo. The late Joe Curtis of Barton once told me that the migrating swallows arrived on 14th April and the migrating swifts on the 14th May. Although about right I think the date varies somewhat according to weather conditions. At the moment the swifts are

Above picture taken 8-30pm today and shows a small group of gulls (mostly common gulls) returning to their Estuary-side roost at dusk. In mid-winter this same return journey can be seen at about 3-30pm. Gulls ‘drift’ home in complete silence, to witness them requires a conscious effort to look up, ‘drift’ being the right word as 

The third and last of the reports from last Friday’s walk. Beside the minor road between Little Weighton and Bentley are two information boards explaining the site of the once Risby House across the intervening dry valley. One board is all text, the other includes illustrative material including an 18th century image of the site