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Observations page for this year, 2005.
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HOME
Observations page for this year, 2005.
BIRDSITE PAGES LINKS and LIST
Visitors since 27th September 2000:
Form for comments
Last year's page diary2003.html
Our bird was absent overnight, but there is much noisy activity outside this morning.
In the morning, a nuthatch was seen trying to gain access to the nestbox.
Our bird, having avoided the pyrotechnics on New Year's Eve, is back roosting in the box again tonight.
For the past two nights the bird has been huddled up in the South-East corner of the box, as far as it can get from the centre of the box and the entrance hole. The box is very dirty with droppings, and could do with a clean.
The warm weather this January is encouraging vigorous early pairing activity among the bluetits visiting the nest boxes. Today there was an extended visiting session, and the box was showed off repeatedly to the partner, with much trying out for fit and size. We may get around to cleaning out the detritus of droppings left by the resident roosting bird. It would be worth trying to take some pictures of the resplendent plumage of these birds at this early time of the year. In previous years, the pairing activity has peaked at about 14th February, Valentine's Day. This year, things are more advanced. There is also a considerable amount of birdsong and noise in the mornings.
There have been heavy squally showers, and bright intervals, during the day. We have been doing box maintenance. Here is a view of the nestbox camera before cleaning. We have also been filling the empty nutfeeder which can hold an imperial pint of nuts and which provides sustenance for both birds and squirrels.
Meanwhile, the young human (12) has been conducting chemistry experiments, dissolving aluminium sheet in a bowl of caustic soda. Maybe our bird-watching days are being superceded.
When the bird finally came in for the night, at about 16:00 hours, it was fazed, confused, and perturbed by the cleanliness around it and took about 20 minutes just sitting and turning around repeatedly, before finally settling to roost for the night. It will not leave now until nearly 08:00 tomorrow; that is after about 16 hours in the box.
Over the weekend, the birds spent a significant part of the morning hours playing in and out of the camera-box and displaying to each other. This activity dies down in the afternoons. The roosting bird comes in about 10 minutes after local sunset.
A thrush has appeared in the garden. It flies in a very ungainly manner, and looks obese. Those readers who are sufficiently old to remember an aircraft called the Brabazon will have a good idea of the airworthiness of our thrush.
In the wooden box at the front of the house, which is supposed to keep the wildlife from tearing the council black plastic binbags to pieces to get at the food scraps inside, a rodent has taken up residence, by gnawing through the wood. The Council is sending a "rodent operative" in the morning on the 20th Jan 04 to sort out this beastie.
It is a little colder tonight, 0.0C outside and in the birdbox. Normally at this time of the year it goes down to between -5 and -15C for spells at a time. There is no doubt that the winters are getting warmer. The birds are enjoying this; they are using the nut feeders much less, and have been pairing up to inspect the box. Sunset is now 50 minutes later than it was in December, and sunrise is 20 minutes earlier than in the late mornings in early January. Therefore the bird is roosting for about an hour less each night than at the winter solstice.
It is 14C outside tonight. The birds are having an easy winter so far. Over the last weekend we observed three birds visiting the box concurrently, on at least one occasion. There is certainly much courtship display and activity, with box-thumping and hole-pecking as in the previous years' reports here.
We have cleaned out the box and polished the optics on the lens path. We have moved the microphone against its mounting as it had stopped working and was picking up a loud hum. On Sunday there was shooting on the common at the back, sounding like a double-barrelled 12-bore. The shooting noises do not disturb the birds.
There has been a greater-spotted woodpecker visiting the hanging nut-feeders. The rodent in the binbag box has been terminally deterred.
Inspections continue. Mucking out has been happening, and the birds have been gathering to display to each other around the box. The wind is in the North and is cold, blowing straight at the box hole.
The young human has been modifying the antenna downlead and stopped it from flapping and tapping on the box, in the course of his amateur radio activity.
The squirrel has been visiting the birdtable, on which have been placed a few supernumerary nuts for his consumption after a refill of the bird nut-feeders.
Valentine's Day has come and gone. That is the day when it is traditionally held that birds pair up for the new season.
We hadn't looked in the boxes for a week or so, but today in box 1 (with the camera) there appears to have been a bird battle, as the box was festooned with fine black under-body feathers, on the floor and also up around the camera. We have cleaned it out, and visited the other boxes both of which show signs of occupancy.
The battles continue. There are more feathers in the camera-box this evening, clearly torn out rather than imported.
Nevertheless, the bird is in roosting as normal after sunset. There is no evidence of occupancy of the other two boxes; no birds inside, and no detritus.
Tonight is the first time ever that we have seen two adult birds roosting in the same box at the same time. If you click on the inline image here you will see the full sized original. The picture was taken at 23:30 GMT, and the weather is cold outside, 2 degrees Celsius. We hazard a guess that the male is on the left and the female on the right in this picture. We have been observing this box for five years now.
Later on the two birds moved and crossed tails and were gone when we got up in the morning.
For the last two nights we have been reduced to just the single bird, which has very pronounced neck markings.
Meanwhile, the lone goldfish swims around in its tanks with only a wrecked china boat for comfort. One springtime in the 1930s, Grandma made a firescreen with a motif of breeding deer. This hangs on the wall by the grandfather clock, overlooking the TV screen where the birds cavort.
Leap-year day today. There have been no occupants of the camera-equipped box overnight for the past two nights. There are still visitors during the day time, however, although they seem to be more tentative than formerly and are probably different birds.
At 17:30 on Sunday, a bird came in for two minutes, looking around, looking out the hole, tapping on the box, and then departing. We wonder if he has made a wise move here, for at 22:00 tonight there is a covering of snow on the patio outside.
After a furlough of a couple of days, there is a roosting bird back in residence. There has been much tentative investigation of the nest box during the morning hours, with hammering on the box to attract the partner, and removal of detritus as a kind of early spring clean. Possibly the very cold nights recently, down to -7C, have encouraged the birds to reroost.
The pair of birds visited the box in the morning, cavorting in and out of the hole and singing loudly. Two young humans managed to catapult a small cuddly monkey named Bongo into the gutter at the top of the second storey, on the corner above the nest box. They then spent three quarters of an hour, at about roosting time, devising improvised fishing tackle to hook it out again from the bedroom window. Unsurprisingly, the bird was deterred by this human intrusion and has not roosted this evening. The Bongo recovery was a success.
Notwithstanding having been displaced last night, the bird was back in the box this morning, showing off his domicile to his prospective partner. We took this photo of the Robin nestbox placed judiciously in a tree, but probably too close to the ground for the taste of the robins, as it will be accessible to passing cats.
The bird has been with us for the last two nights. The temperature is hovering a few degrees above freezing. The birds generally are not eating very much from the feeders, which need replenishing only once every ten days or so. Looking forwards to when the breeding season proper will get well under way, we can do worse than look at the statistics collected for the last four or five years.
The cold weather of early in the week has passed, leaving a strong south west air flow with showers including hail, which rattles against the box. The pair of birds continues daily inspection, and a single bird roosts overnight. The daffodils, having been confused by the warm weather in the early part of the year, have thrown out their heads into the inclement weather and are looking bedraggled. We haven't yet observed test pieces of moss being introduced into the box.
It has been warm and balmy for a couple of days, with temperatures around 15C. The frogs have laid spawn in the garden pond, which could do with a muck-out. This is three days later than the effort last year, where the picture of spawn was taken on the 15th March 2003. The bird is roosting again tonight, and has been visiting during the day together with A.N.Other. At this stage we are not sure which is the male and which the female. Sometimes it is possible to tell by body language, if they are both on camera at the same time.
The fourth Sunday in Lent, Mothering Sunday locally. There are a few pieces of test materials in box 2 which sits on the back wall of the main garage, but does not have a camera in it. Yesterday, the strong winds at roosting time buffeted the camera-box, box 1, so strongly that the sleeping bird left in a great hurry. However, life outside the box was no improvement and so it was back within 30 minutes.
The humans dispersed, to Grenoble to ski and to Basingstoke to hear Brahms play his 4th symphony on a local amateur orchestra. At least, I am told that this is what it feels like.
There would seem to have been another battle in box 1. This morning there were feathers, and this evening, no bird at roosting time. Looking back at last year's record, the dead bird episode happened at about this date, on the 27th March 2003. Clearly this is a critical time for establishing nesting site control.
The bird is back roosting again tonight. We think it is the same bird, as it has the same body language and general appearance. It is shaking gently in its sleep, looking a little unsteady on its feet, unlike many others we have seen, which appear more restful than this when roosting.
It is still cold overnight, 2-4 degrees C. This morning there is some additional nest-base material in box 2 but still nothing in the box equipped with the camera, box 1, although visits to it by both birds are frequent. We are expecting nest building to begin in earnest by the first week in April.
Serious nest building has started in box 2.
No roosting bird in box 1 tonight, and no signs of impending nest construction there either.
The construction in box 2 is developing.
The bird is back roosting in box 1 again tonight, after two days' absence. It came in very late, nearly in the twilight.
A look inside box 2 this morning revealed a sitting broody resplendent bird, with stunning colours to its plumage, looking up rather quizzically. On the other hand there has been no visiting activity to box 1, and on the 1st 2nd 3rd of April there has been no overnight roosting there.
A bird occupied box 2 again today, but there has been no sign of occupancy of box 1 for the past week. The nest cup in box 2 is well-developed, but it has not yet been lined, and is open all the way down to the wooden floor.
The activity in box 2 continues, showing a well-developed nest cup and the owner flitting about in the nearby tree.
At dusk, a smaller bird came in to roost for the night. We are pleased to see it; the last time we observed a roosting bird in the camera-equipped box was 31st March (see above), but experience has shown that a desirable residence is not left unoccupied for long in this locality.
Incidentally, one of last year's pictures, of a newly-fledged bluetit on a nut feeder, has been reprinted in the magazine The Scientist which is a US-based publication dealing in the life sciences. The context in which it appears is that of preventing the spread of natural-born disease (west nile fever, bird flu etc) by persuading householders to stop feeding wildlife in their gardens. We are ignoring this advice.
The young human's Easter treat, two melons and a cucumber, are provided by the wiser older generation instead of chocolate eggs. It is difficult to become enthusiastic about egg eating when one is watching them being used for breeding purposes.
It is London Marathon time again next Sunday. The female human has done her training and is having a few days well-earned rest.
The box 1 bird was roosting again last night but hasn't shown interest in building anything. In box 2, the nest is now nicely lined, with a few feathers and some sheep wool. A close-up view of the structure shows some interesting "applied complex systems" engineering.
Today it is warm and balmy. The nest is complete, and awaiting eggs.
Over the back fence, the sheep looks at the post van which has arrived. Sheep are strange characters. The field in which these particular ones live is called the "Half-Pint sheep sanctuary" in memory of the very first rescued sheep to live here, which was called Half-Pint.
A very wet and blowy day today. The bird had laid no visible eggs, although it might have buried one out of sight. The 24th London Marathon was an effort, reportedly. The Female Human returned, bedraggled, with a medal and a time reported by SMS message at 4:04:49 in the pouring rain at about 15:30 BST.
A fine and sunny morning for a change. The male human was up at 05:00, trying to defeat the foxes who spread the rubbish which they tear out of the council plastic rubbish bags, up and down the street.
The flowering cherry blossom looks magnificent against the blue sky.
And in the nestbox 2 there are two eggs. The first egg must have been laid on the 21st April, which was a wet morning. Close inspection of the detail shows the reddish speckles that are customary on bluetit eggs.
In box 1 there has been a roosting bird every night since the picture above was taken. It is not a very house-trained bird and it leaves a lot of mess. It has gone in the mornings at first light. No nest building, just a roosting bird.
There was much activity around the various unoccupied boxes in the garden today. We took down the camera-equipped box and cleaned it out with lemon-scented washing up liquid. It had droppings stuck firmly to the base and sides, and lots of small black feathers, looking again as if there had been a battle.
Having reinstated the box on its mounting at about 18:30, there were a few visits, followed by a serious inspection by a new pair of birds. It may be a bit late now for them to start nest building....
In any case, after a couple of timid inspections our regular rooster came in to settle for the night. It is a small bird with distinctive neck markings, and it is just possible that it is a youngster, only one year old and not into breeding yet, but possibly into fighting.
A persistent cuckoo was singing in the woods in the early morning. A pleasant noise indeed, to wake up to. Probably not so welcome by some of the local breeding birds.
The computers that run this site are "hungry for power" and are being transferred to a 3-phase electricity supply today, with a 40kVA UPS to prevent outages like the one we are currently experiencing. Therefore we shall have to wait until tomorrow to post the "hidden eggs" picture which we took this morning. The bird has probably laid four eggs by now, and mindful of inquisitive prying predators, has buried them all beneath nest materials. It would be very unwise to dig around in this to uncover them as they are very fragile, and the bird will be unhappy.
Our customary roosting bird in box 1 is present as usual this evening, and slightly unsteady on its legs. Perhaps we could call it "william" after the composer William Byrd.
According to our counting, the bird in box 2 should, by now, have laid six eggs, but this afternoon only one of them is just visible. However, the bird has been busy feathering its nest, as we can see in this large scale picture of white and black feathers.
In box 1, in the early morning, there was a flurry of nest building activity, but this had died down by 8am resulting in a few pieces of moss in the box. We still watch "in hope". The resident roosting bird has been making more mess again, and perhaps has been defending the box against the potential nesters.
In box 2, the eggs remain securely hidden from view.
In box 1 this evening, the habitual rooster has been displaced by a female who has been nest building very far into the evening. This was preceded by inspection of the nest box, and careful determination that there was no sitting tenant. The other of the pair perched on the roof of the box and observed from the wire and the garden tree.
In box 2, there are eight visible eggs. All is normal.
In box 1, the "new pair" of birds took it in turns to guard the nest, and all the time bringing in more moss. Eventually the other roosting bird arrived and there was a fight. This disturbed the female human, as it was quite unpleasant to watch. A decision was made in a few seconds to intervene, to prevent murder being done as had happened in box 2 in 2003 season. Accordingly we took the box down and opened it whereupon the birds separated and stopped attacking each other's underbellies. For the record, we stopped for a moment, with the open box lid, and photographed the protagonists. You can see in this picture a few blue feathers in among the nest material, but there appears to be no serious wounds to either bird. In any event they flew off about their respective businesses.
It then took little effort to get them to depart and there has been no box activity since. Last year's fight resulted in a bloody dead bird and the box had to be completely cleaned out to await the eventual nesting pair.
The humans felt like the black crow in the story of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. A curious transposition of people and birds.
A wet day today. No activity in Box 1, where the fight took place, but the 8 eggs are being incubated in box 2.
Our camera-equipped box has attracted much interest from the birds, and there is clearly serious competition for what is a very desirable site. We wonder, idly, if this prevalence of fighting is commonplace in nesting bluetits. In previous fights we have watched the full development to see how far the birds will take it, but now we know that they may fight to the death it seems not unreasonable to intervene. A box containing a dead bird is useless for nesting purposes.
It has been wet this week, with over 30mm rain in the gauge since the Bank Holiday weekend, thunderstorms and heavy showers producing most of the precipitation.
Our birds have always ignored loud noises, and are not disturbed by thunder, aircraft, or human activity which generates noise. We have invested in a new (quieter) lawnmower after eleven years, as the old one had developed engine problems. The birds completely ignore lawnmowing.
In box 2 the bird is patiently incubating the eight eggs. The nest is not looking quite so fresh now; we have only peered inside the box once in the last four days and are keeping a low profile. Hatching may occur from Monday 10th onwards, and will be complete by Thursday 13th probably.
There has been no further activity in box 1. Neither have there been any visitors that we have noticed. It is probably that during the fight the birds secreted feather oil, and it may be that this leaves a warning smell. Last year, after the battle in the other box, we completely emptied it and cleaned it out with boiling water, but no additives.
Later in the evening, we hear a nightingale singing in the tree on the other side of the road. After a while a celebratory firework shoots up from the other side of the common, which sets off the vixen and shuts up the nightingale.
Rather an overcast start to the day, but nevertheless we took a respite from watching our birds to go down to Birdworld where we took a few pictures. At Birdworld there is also an aquarium, so don't be surprised if some of the birds look like fish.
An overcast morning again today. The bird in box 2 is still sitting quietly on the unhatched eggs (well, they were unhatched on the 12th and all present and correct). We have been very sparing in our observations at this critical time, but are a bit worried as the hatching is by now overdue. Perhaps the bird is concerned, also.
The other humans watched a green woodpecker dig around on the lawn, presumably looking for worms, at around 07:30.
Hatching has occurred in box 2 since we last looked on the 13th. It appears that all eight eggs have hatched. In order not to disturb the birds too much, we present here the equivalent splendid picture that we took on the 13th May last year in this box. Isn't it amazing that the hatching happens within one or two days of the same date each year?
We'll now leave the birds to get on with rearing the chicks, looking in only occasionally, as by now from the historical record we know what should be happening. See diary2003.html for details, for example.
It is a relief to have observed this successful hatching. See birdstats.txt for details of timings over the last 6 years.
A quick count of beaks inside the box this afternoon, after determining that the parents were absent, makes six youngsters. There may be more hidden underneath; we didn't see any unhatched eggs. The BBC has been trailing a program for Monday 17th at 9pm called "nature" and in the trailer they make the suggestion that the oak leaf burst happens on average two weeks earlier than it did 40 years ago, but that "parus major have not adapted their nesting time" and consequently "many caterpillars have pupated before they can be fed to the young, which are therefore starving". It would be very interesting to hear where this data comes from, and, also, if it applies to parus caeruleus as well as parus major. On our common, the oak leaves are about 1/3 fully grown at the moment, and the appropriate light shade of green.
In any case, our youngsters are beginning to sprout some head feathers. We have had no sight of the parents since hatching happened.
It has been warm and sunny for two days. The temperature in the exam hall this afternoon was 28C or 82F. The birds are coming along fine, as can be seen in this picture of the well-formed nest cup. A closer inspection reveals at least six youngsters, lying all higgledy-piggledy on top of one another. It is probably the evening of the fourth day from hatching, and there is a closeup view of a nestling, showing crinkled skin and the beginnings of feather development along the ridge of its backbone.
A cooler day today, with overnight rain last night. The birds are peeping (it is a younger kind of noise than the cheeping they will do later on). In the nest cup they are still grouped together at the bottom. They have very scrawny necks, reminiscent of a vulture. Feathers are beginning to sprout on their upper fore-limbs as we can see in this cropped shot of an isolated youngster on its seventh day out of the egg.
The weather has been generally fine for the last four days since we last looked. An inspection this morning reveals the neat nestbox with the birds contained deep within the nestcup. Beaks and feathers are forming nicely now, and four of the five visible birds look sleek, although the fifth looks rather scratty. Here is a sleek bird on day eleven. The parents watched from a nearby tree while we took 120 seconds to obtain the pictures. They made squawking alarm calls; as we have been very sparing with visiting the nest box this year, the adults haven't become so much accustomised to our presence. It may be that regular visits by humans are, paradoxically, less stressful for the birds.
Some light rain last night, but the weather has "set fair" otherwise. We are anticipating fledging for our birds on day 20 or 21, which puts it at 3rd or 4th of June, or next Thursday or Friday. Reports of successful fledgings are reaching us from elsewhere around the UK, together with the odd problem and a few disasters. This is the fledging season, and it should be possible to see young Parus Caeruleus in the wild from any time onwards.
We are pondering the relative fragility of this process. The maximium reported life of these birds in the wild is around 8 years, but that seems to be exceptional and it is more likely that they last only 2 or 3 years, assuming they survive long enough to breed. Considering that this process happens in a synchronised way around April to June each year, one can see that an environmental disaster, which interferes with the food supply, could have a great effect on the numbers of these birds. It does appear, though, that in recent years bluetits have been relatively successful when compared with sparrows, for example.
We are assuming our birds are coming along normally, but have been too busy to go and look. The female human is en route for Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei where she is on a degree-awarding trip. The male humans are busy "mucking out in the nest".
Up early this morning, and the view of the nestbox at 6am shows healthily-developing birds, one of which is displaying the formation of its new wings.
The female human has arrived in Bandar and is relaxing in the steamy heat by the hotel poolside.
The nest construction this year has been elegant and artistic. I think our bird could get a job building bijou residences around Guildford. Anyway, a count this morning reveals, we think, all eight birds. See what you think. The one which has escaped the nest cup looks up at the camera quizzically. If we turn off the flash we get a better idea of the true colours of these youngsters on day 16. A Whitsun portrait of the birds is rather appealing.
Today is the formal presentation of the new carvings on the West front of Guildford Cathedral.
The birds are nearly ready to fledge now, and the fledgeling pictured hops around in the nest box and flutters. Outside, the parents keep up a noisy vigil, and a passing helicopter clatters overhead.
The next few days are busy in the humans' household; a returner from Bandar, revision for exams, examiners' meetings, antennas short-course preparation, and so on. It is probable we shall not record the fledging this year. Here is the occupied nestbox from which the first flights will be made. There are no very local trees, so they have to make a distance of at least ten metres.
The day started with drenching rain. The female human was collected from Heathrow airport at 06:30, with her collection of Brunei pictures, and eventually the rain stopped, thereby giving us a chance to observe both parent birds feeding their unfledged young, in the early evening. The birds are not accustomed to us humans, as we have been down very rarely to observe them, and there is no other human traffic near their box. They make a very distinctive warning call, but after 15 minutes of patient observation they became somewhat more used to the observers and continued their feeding.
Fine weather has returned, and the birds are busy feeding their young at 6pm in the evening sunshine. Both parents are occupied in visiting every few minutes with visible caterpillars. One of them stopped to clear up some droppings deposited on the brick paving under the birdbox.
When the human observer first sat down to watch from the garden chair, the birds made loud alarm calls and tried to distract the human by fluttering a few feet at a time along the top of the fence. Using the fence as a staging post, they flew repeatedly back and forth to the ridge of the garage roof, then hopped down the gable end and dived into the box at about the fifth attempt.
However, twenty minutes of quiet watching later, things had changed and they were happily flying straight into the nestbox hole with food, without stageing or chattering. Perhaps if you are bird watching, quiet motionless observation is the best ploy.
When we looked at 9am today, all eight birds had fledged. See birdstats.txt for details of this year's (and earlier years') statistics.
There is an outbreak of young-bird noises in the garden. We have reconstituted the nut and seed feeders, and are rewarded with visits by young and mature bluetits and a greater spotted woodpecker. The first bird arrived within 20 seconds of placing the feeders.
For some unknown reason, the takeup of the provender in the bird feeders has been very light for most of June, only picking up in the past few days. Birds in the garden have been noticeable by their absence. Today, however, we see many juveniles of various species; green- and goldfinches, spotted woodpecker, greattits and sparrows, but not a large number of bluetits (these have been very obviously present in previous years around this time). Some of the youngsters are very obviously novice flyers, which is odd as the book tells us they must be now about a month from fledging time. Perhaps the season has been delayed this year.
It is very hot and sultry this evening, after a day of fierce thunderstorms in central London (but not here). We see bats flying around in the back garden. The bird box has the remains of a half-built nest, which was abandoned after the fight (see above). There have been visitors as the material has been moved around several times. It is getting towards the time when we should clear out this box ahead of winter roosting activity.
There are huge swarms of birds in the garden, and also visiting the nut and seed feeders. It was suggested by email, that the reason there were so few birds in June and the first part of July is that the newly hatched young were being attended to in the wild by their parents and siblings, and there was in June a plentiful supply of natural food.
We had a two-yearly slash and burn of the ground cover in the garden yesterday, and that seems to have disturbed the ecology and brought out all the ground feeders searching for displaced life forms in the debris on the grass.
There have been visits to the camera-equipped box, also. It has not yet been cleared. Many different birds are poking their heads into the hole to have a look-see.
Autumn has set in. The camera-equipped box was cleared out today and the microphone made to work again, and the perspex lens cover was cleaned. No birds have been roosting, presumably because the box contained the remains of a half-built nest. We sterilised the emptied box with boiling water.
In box 2, down the garden, which was cleaned out over the summer, there was evidence (droppings) of roosting bird activity, together with a colony of woodlice. This box, too, was cleaned out and replaced.
The scenery at this time of year around here can be seen in the page of a walk around Winkworth Arboretum, Godalming, Surrey.
The morning was frosty. There is a steady flow of bird traffic to the seed and nut feeders, including a greater spotted woodpecker and a bluetit minus one of its legs. There has been no sign of roosting in the camera equipped box ("Box 1"), but down the garden Box 2 has a fair collection of droppings, which we have cleaned out with boiling water, to encourage the roosters with a housecleaned home.
There has been two days of inclement weather, including a spell of snow yesterday. Today we saw, for the very first time, long-tailed-tits on the largest nutfeeder. Three of them came in a group, perching on the overhead wires first, and then proceeding to lunch. They are impressive-looking birds.
New Year's Eve 2004. No birds. The diary for 2005 kicks off tomorrow, observe2005.html with a brand new box occupant! A marvellous sense of timing.
email d.jefferies@surrey.ac.uk David Jefferies 21st November, 2004
