Photos about the Fair Isle - December 2013

Seal pup

An old badly eroded Northern Lighthouse Board brass Cap badge.
Found wedged into the rocks below the lighthouse.

Seal pup below the South Lighthouse

South Lighthouse in Sunshower between gales.

HM Coastguard Quad Training

Fair Isle's HM Coastguard Cliff Rescue Team have been selected to be the first in Britain to receive a quad and trailer to carry rope and equipment up the hills and to the cliff edges in case of an emergency. All the team received training, it was hard work as well as fun.

 

The school kids singing carols at the Christmas performance.

To all: A very Merry Christmas from Fair Isle!

Spice up your holiday spirit!

Tommy's Spiced Christmas Whisky - Open your Whisky bottle drop in spices. 1 stick of cinnamon, 2 star aniseeds, 7 green cardamom seeds, 1 whole clove and a halve of a vanilla bean. Wait 2 days or more to decant into a custom labelled bottle. Taste often until you like it! Suggestion the star aniseed is strong you my want to use only one or remove earlier than other spices. It really dresses up a holiday spirit. Ho Ho Ho! leave some for Santa. Cheers! 

Trip to Barcelona

Been to Barcelona and back since my last post.

I was invited down for Thanksgiving and to see my friends new place just north of the city. 

I stayed a few days more because I have been wanting to see the Antoni Gaudi Buildings ever since my History of Modren Architecture course with James Kettlewell at Skidmore College during the Summer of 1983. Thirty years later... I was not disappointed! Amazing! I had a great time and need to give a big thank you to my friends for finally getting me to Barcelona.

I took hundreds of photos here are just a few.

 

La Sagrada Famila - Gaudi's Cathedral 

Casa Balto - one of Gaudi's Apartment buildings

Park Guell & Barcelona

More info on Gaudi's buildings: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/320/

Caga Tio - Tio de Nadel
Catalonia Christmas Tradition aka "The Shit Log"
It was great fun walking through the Christmas markets.

Of course I did do so Birdwatching...

My birding was done mostly around the grounds of my friends place, Birding was hard, everything was far away and very mobile and then few into the back side of the tree. Black Redstarts where the most common birds around the Casa. The one bird I saw out in the open was a Hawfich up top a tree? I always heard they a hard to see? I did have a few lifer with Spanish resident species not common here in Fair Isle. Serin, Crested Tit, Sardinian Warbler, Spotless Starling, Firecrest, also probable Cirl Bunting and Short Toed Eagle. But the biggest surprise while out birding was sighting 3 wild boars!

Originally a winery dating back to the 13th century.
The wine still flows when the owners are home.
and there was dancing!

That hat made me look more like a Quaker selling oats than a calypso dancer.

Three Little Pigs!
I saw these Wild Boars sunny themselves while I was birdwatching.

Video of the Wild Boar.

Montserrat north of Barcelona.

The flight home over the Pyrenees. 
Wow! I could see little roads up to the top of some of the summits and thought of those cyclists that tick of Mountains climbs... ouch!