AOG - Day 1 Squirrel Jumping

It's Day One of the Alternative Olympic Games and Susan Squirrel put in an excellent performance in the heats of the squirrel jumping competition. The squirrels are judged not on distance as it's a standard leap from the fence to the tree, but on jump judgement and body positioning. As you can see in stage 1 she was slightly off balance, but excellent tail use gave her a wonderful glide phase at stage 2, with perfect distance judgement for the stage 3 catch phase. She easily made it through to the finals.

I went into town first thing, then did an hour of volunteering at Spout Hills. We were pulling bracken again, but there wasn't much left to do after last month, so we had a wander looking at the wild flowers and the biplane that flew over. I've put a pretty eyebright in extras and we also saw harebells. Back home I sat reading the paper in the garden and watching some of the Olympics. The plane in Extras flew low overhead just like it did 10 days ago. I'd seen an article online about it flying over the area - it's a Boeing 727 which has been on standby for worldwide operations to clean up oil spills since it was acquired and refitted by Oil Spill Response in 2016. Today it flew over at 3,025 ft per Flight Radar.  The article in North Norfolk News said it's one of the rarest Boeings still flying. The Oil Spill Response website says it's fitted with internal tanks, pumps and a spray boom to deliver dispersant liquid and was built in 1984. Both recent flights were from its base in London Southend up to the North Norfolk coast and back again.