Queensferry Crossing Walk

Cast your mind back to March this year when I posted a blog about the construction of the latest bridge across the River Forth, called the Queensferry Crossing. Well, as you have probably heard in the news recently, this new bridge is finally open........... and I was lucky enough to be allowed to walk across it before the Queen performed the official opening ceremony.
I was part of a group of volunteers from Echline Community Woodland who (together with thousands of other groups and individuals) were given the 'once in a lifetime' opportunity to walk over this new bridge.
Unlike the original Forth Road Bridge, there are no pedestrians or cyclists allowed on the new bridge so this meant the traffic used the old bridge whilst we did our walk.
This is a brief story in pictures and video of our walk across the Queensferry Crossing:

Huw, Keith, John and Janet at the start

 

Huw and Janet

John raring to go

There were five of the ECW volunteers (me, Huw, John, Keith and Geoff) to start with and we met up with Huw's wife Janet and Geoff's wife Brenda, who had come with another group.
We were given an hour to cross the 1.7 mile long bridge, but we weren't in a hurry so took our time and enjoyed the experience. Some of our group wanted to cross a bit quicker so we were happy for them to go ahead.

Plenty of people were crossing the bridge

We took plenty of snaps

I was there as well

The views from the bridge were pretty good as well, considering it was a bit of a grey day:

The Inner Forth Estuary

Rosyth from Queensferry Crossing

The views of the bridge were pretty spectacular, and as we approached the first tower you really got a feel for the scale of this engineering marvel:

Web of cables on first tower

Information Board at first tower

The cable work looked like the strings on a giant harp.............. however there was no giant there to play a tune............... that would have been impressive!!
The sign says 'you should be 20 minutes into your Queensferry Crossing' but in reality it took us 40 minutes to get there............... nobody was chasing us along so we were not bothered.
At the mid point between first and second tower, the cables for these two towers crossed over and resembled some sort of giant fishing net:

Criss-cross of Cables

Towards the second tower

Can you spot the Storm Troopers

I meant to say that as we crossed from South to North there were also people crossing North to South on the opposite carriageway, including a small band of Star Wars fans dressed as Storm Troopers.
We stopped for a short break at this point so I took the opportunity to take some photos and videos of the surroundings:

Midway between Tower 1 and Tower 2

John calls time-out

As well as enjoying the scenery and the bridge construction, there was also plenty happening down on the water............... we saw a Police Rib (rigid inflatable boat) milling around under the bridge and a cargo ship leaving Rosyth dockyard....................... it was all going down as they say:

As we approached the second or central tower you got a real feel for how high this bridge is.......... and the stats confirm that at 210 metres it is the highest bridge tower in the UK:

Approaching the Central Tower

Heading in the right direction......North

Central Tower.........pretty high

More useful information

I can't understand why they use London buses to represent the height of the tower on this bridge??
Buses are not allowed on this bridge, they are supposed to use the original Forth Road Bridge.............doh!
I also can't remember them lifting elephants during construction?
Meanwhile we carried on with our walk:

John and Huw forge ahead

We might not have had Storm Troopers to accompany us on our walk across the bridge but we did have Supermen (no I don't mean Huw and John):

Superman and Superboy

As we approached the third tower I noticed that the Fred Olsen cruise ship that was docked at Rosyth was on its way out:

Cruise Ship leaves Rosyth

Cruise Ship steams towards bridge

 

There are several cruises that leave from Rosyth, I think this was one which visits various Norwegian Fjords, so anoraks and warm clothing required.
After we passed the third tower we were on the home stretch, in fact we stopped for a little break with only about two hundred yards to go:

Only Two Hundred Yards to go!

As well as this sign and several huge information screens there was also some very useful Health and Safety signage on the bridge:

Useful to know

We refrained from any of these activities, including the walking hand-in-hand.
At this pit-stop we noticed that the Fred Olsen cruise ship 'Black Watch' had sailed right up to the bridge.......... and that all the passengers were on deck waving to us (and others on the bridge). They even blew the ship's horn as they passed under the bridge, how cool is that!:

Buoyed with our reception from the cruise ship we pushed on with the final leg of our journey, crossing the finish line in a record breaking 2 hours ..........................We were so pleased with ourselves:

Huw and John at the finish line

A look back along the bridge showed that we were not the last to finish:

Looking back, but not in anger.

OK they might have started later then us, but we did it!!
Who knows the next time they will close the bridge for people to walk across, so I am glad I was given the opportunity to do this 'once in a lifetime' walk.

Take Care,

Teddyedward

Red Kite Delight

It has been more than seven years since I last visited Argaty Red Kites near Doune to watch these fantastic birds in action; and as my sister from America (who is a keen birdwatcher) is in Scotland just now, I thought it would be an ideal time to revisit the Red Kite feeding station. So me , my wife and both my sisters went along to Argaty Farm last week and this is the story of our visit:
Once everybody was in the bird hide Lynn from Argaty Farm arranged for the food spread to be out on a clearing on a nearby hillside. The food consisted of a few scraps of venison (most of which was still attached to the bone/skin) as they do not over-feed these wild Kites, merely provide a light snack.
As we waited for the birds to gather I videoed this Juvenile Kite perched on and electricity pole:

You could here the Kites 'whistling' at each other as they started to gather in the trees near to the feeding station:

You can also hear my sisters (amongst others) talking over my video.................. I must invest in a directional microphone.
Meanwhile the Kites were starting to get a little closer to where the food had been spread out:

Despite their large size, Red Kites are surprisingly lightweight birds and are also a little timid. This is especially evident when feeding, as they don't like to land on the ground but prefer to swoop down and snatch their food whilst in flight. They also like to wait until other birds (such as crows or buzzards) land near the food, demonstrating that it is safe for them to feed.
After a Crow visited the food on the ground, one brave Red Kite decided it was time to grab some venison:

Sorry but I mucked up the filming of this feeding............. I didn't zoom out quick enough and got an out-of-focus video!!
Never mind I thought.......... as after one bird comes down there is usually a feeding frenzy............ I will be ready for that!
Suddenly there was a swarm of Red Kites in the sky, all egging each other on with loud whistles:

One Kite seemed to break away from the others and headed towards the hillside where the food was......................... only to land on a nearby tree:

Perhaps the Kites were too timid to come down today, perhaps they had eaten enough carrion that they had found by themselves earlier in the day, who knows they were not for dining on our venison scraps anyway.
As I never had a long lens camera with me I thought I would try some digi-scoping by using my mobile phone and my telescope to capture some images of this bird on the tree:

The first image wasn't too great but my second attempt was a little bit better:

Not brilliant, but not too bad for a mobile phone - telescope combination.
Although no other birds (other than crows and magpies) decided to come and feed it was far from boring as there was plenty of action in the skies, were the Red Kites demonstrated their fantastic aerobatics:

In essence it was just like a bunch of teenagers 'mucking about' and trying some talon grappling, either way it was fun to watch.
Everybody agreed that although there was no 'feeding frenzy' it was still a very enjoyable afternoon.
Red Kites are such brilliant birds on the wing you cannot help but enjoy watching them.

Until next time.

Take care

Teddyedward