Grey Heron in Flight and Fishing

Photos of Grey Herons this summer.

 

One June morning this adult flew over me as I walked the canal bank.

Normally they change direction if they are flying towards you, but this waited until the last moment.



 

A juvenile with a small fish.  I claim no fieldcraft skills as this bird was skulking in the shadows by the bank right next to the footbridge in St James Park in central London as tourists passed close by on a sunny day this month.

London - Ammonite in lift floor

Travelling in a lift in a London City office block, I noticed that there appeared to be a fossil in the stone tiles of the floor.  On closer inspection, to my layman's eyes it was an Ammonite.  A quick google search showed that the rock was not marble as I had originally thought. This is because the original limestone that is metamorphosed under high pressure has been altered too much for fossils to be preserved in a recognisable form. Fossils do occur but this is extremely rare and tend to be small.  More likely to be polished limestone which retains its fossils

 

This Ammonite fossil was about 10cms across.

 

The strange mauve blue was cast by the lighting in the lift.  Where my shadow fell at the bottom was more like the natural colour of the stone.  It is a bit clearer when I converted the snap to monochrome.

 

Who would have thought that when this ammonite died and fell to the bottom of the sea millions of years ago (amonites were around 400 to 65 million years ago), it would be travelling up and down in London City lift.