A Singing Stonechat

H, G and I met at 8am at Kelling Heath with our long lenses / binoculars to go in search of Dartford Warblers, Stonechats and adders. No adders around, but my main photo is of one of several stonechats we saw, plus I got just one reasonable photo of a dartford warbler (see extra). The birds like the fence poles and wire running either side of the railway track, unfortunately some noisy work repairing the track seemed to keep them away when it started up. 

This afternoon I spent 2.5 hours unpacking a set of steps delivered yesterday, connecting the hand rails, trying them out and finding them wobbly and potentially dangerous, complaining to customer service and booking a collection, filling in return forms, and repackaging it! I was shocked at the poor quality of the item given it was £90, and also returned another item that didn’t work - I won’t be buying from Scott’s of Stow again.

Day 725 / Day 16 of no Legal Covid Requirements in England (for my record only)
Research on excess deaths around the world during the pandemic has concluded that estimated actual deaths to Dec 2021 were 18.2m, over 3 times the official number. UK excess deaths are broadly in line with Covid deaths reported. India had an estimated 4.1m deaths, with the US and Russia having c1.1m each. 

The weekly ONS infection survey of private households shows increasing infections across the UK, with 1 in 25 in England with the virus (up); 1 in 18 in Scotland (up); 1 in 30 in Wales (up) ; and 1 in 13 in NI (up). Infections are rising in older age groups. The number of people in hospital in Scotland with Covid is the highest for 13 months, with hospital admissions going up across the UK since 27/2. Virologists in Paris have sequenced the genome of a ‘Deltracron’ variant which has been circulating since early Jan.