The Cars

The Alfa Spider (96) was raced by Nick's friend Anthony Ross, from Cambridge.  He shared the racing with his son Adam.  The two Mini Coopers (one Austin, the other Morris) raced closely and swapped positions may times during the races.  The Austin retired twice.  Adam Ross chases the yellow Ginetta G15 into Coram Curve.  The Ferrari 308 was rather quiet for a racer.  The XK 150's driver flung it into corners but never quite got to oversteer.

The Pits

To Snetterton with Nick Hyde and met Peter there, as he went by Midget.  Lovely warm weather and a good turn-out of historic racing cars. 

Cuber Reservoir and the Salt Pans

As the Black Vulture is no longer flying in Mallorca, the biggest bird in the mountains is the Griffon Vulture, and we also saw the smallest, the Firecrest.  A Booted Eagle put in an appearance.  The salt pans in the south of the island were disappointing, but we did find a Collared Pratincole, newly arrived and not keen to move far.  

Albufera Day 2

A duller day but highlight was getting a fishing Osprey in the viewfinder.  The Marsh Harriers were quite relaxed hunting within yards of the road and hotels.

Albufera Day 1

From the top:  Yellow Wagtail; Green Sandpiper; Little Egret; Purple Heron and Osprey.

Mallorca

Thanks to Jet-2 we arrived on time at our hotel across the road from the S'Albufera reserve -indeed, you could see the roof sign from the hide!

Pits Walk

Accompanied the walk in dreary weather as a volunteer.  Using ISO 3200 on the Olympus, I was still only at 1/1000th sec.  I spotted goldcrest and tree creeper and photographed a swallow spotted by our leader.  When I downloaded the images, I spotted a ? sand martin we hadn't seen at the time on the same tree as the swallow.  Finally a dunnock.  We ticked 45 species, and saw none of the usual raptors.  

The Old 135 Magic

The 135mm focal length was the first 'extra' lens I bought for my Praktica back in the 70s, the first for the new Canon autofocus system in the 00s and now it's a 90mm for the Fuji, which has the same angle of view on this format as the 135mm.  Although it's going to be my 'insect' lens, and used with an extension tube and a flash, as here, it doubles as a portrait lens.  Pics 2 & 3 are 100% crops and the detail is very good.  Roll on Spring!