Today at work I.....

No handrails polished today, too busy, but I was watching a Guillemot diving and a pair of crows messing about on the flare bridge, later on saw a wood pigeon. Amazing thing is, we are 190 miles northeast of Aberdeen, on the same latitude as Fair Isle and almost exactly halfway to Norway. What are crows & woodies doing all the way out here.

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No handrails polished today, too busy, but I was watching a Guillemot diving and a pair of crows messing about on the flare bridge, later on saw a wood pigeon. Amazing thing is, we are 190 miles northeast of Aberdeen, on the same latitude as Fair Isle and almost exactly halfway to Norway. What are crows & woodies doing all the way out here.

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That is amazing when you think about it, what are two crows and a woody doing nearly 200 miles off shore 🤔
 
Over the years working offshore I’ve seen quite a few raptors, a lot of rigs will have a resident Sparrowhawk but I’ve also seen a short eared owl, an eagle owl, a sea eagle, herons and any number of migratory birds.

Aside from the birds there was also a seal around the legs of the platform today.
 
Thinking about it, the installation manager does have a shotgun locked in a cabinet in his office for manually lighting the flare. 🤔
 
Sorry, didn’t see this, I was on Beryl A, however I have just flown out to Forties Charlie. ☹️
A bit off topic, but, wifey and me watched a prog. about Lighthouses last week. Must have been one of the most interesting progs. that’s been on tv for a long time.
It made me think back to the early ‘50s. A school friend gave me a light bulb that his Dad brought home from work in a sack!
Turned out his Dad worked shifts on the South Goodwin Lightship. How he got that job I don’t know as we lived inland about 300 miles from the lightship.
He was lucky, he worked one month on and one month off and he was off at the time of that ship’s disaster.
Ken.
Ps. I was surprised just how small the bulb is.
Sometime in the 1960s an electrician friend lit it for us, from memory it worked on 100 volts.
I don’t know how, but my late brother’s wife has the bulb now.
 
Watched a bloody huge grey seal polish off a fish in one gulp as it floated around the legs of the platform that I'm currently on. I tried to get a photo but my camera is utter crap.
We see seals quite often offshore but I've only seen whales a handful of times in all the years I've been doing this. You also see a lot of porpoises off the platforms much closer to shore.
 
Got a delivery from a well known auction house at 7.45am this morning. They were supposed to have dropped it in a valuation day in the West Midlands yesterday. A fact only realised when I arrived and their representative discovered the error. Oh well. Still the thing is here now.
 
Spent the morning pricking out seedlings in the greenhouse, the afternoon with the chainsaw sorting out next winter's supply with my son until my back gave out (as it does these days) then the evening will be spent dealing with a rat infestation on a local farm, something I never tire of, then collapse into bed! Not bad for an eighty-seven-year-old!
Got mine done too.
 
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