RichH

Were you perhaps thinking of a Kestrel, rather than a Kite?

South of Peckham Rye Park and North of Brenchley Gardens. Yes, they have shocking table manners! I was amazed that the hawk took a full 90 minutes to consume almost the entire pigeon. Only feathers and a couple of tiny bits of intestine remained. The hawk then stalked (i.e on foot) around the back garden, crawling under bushes and peering up into shrubbery, presumably looking for dessert, before flying off. Suprised it could take off after such a huge lunch! I guess it perhaps hadn't had a decent meal for a few days.

Easter Sunday lunch. Excellent... unless you're on the menu! Sparrow Hawk tucking into a delicious, plump-breasted pigeon.

Annoying isn't it! The below should work for Windows 11 and the latest Microsoft Office applications but it should help for earlier versions also. Firstly, other Users can be removed from Windows Settings > Accounts > Other Users. Next, before fiddling with OneDrive, back up your files first. Deleting items from OneDrive will likely delete locally stored versions too! You can uninstall Microsoft OneDrive from Windows Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. Find Microsoft OneDrive from the list, click the ellipsis next to the Microsoft OneDrive entry and select Uninstall. Or, as I did myself, you can keep OneDrive installed but get around the niggling problems by deselecting all folders/files that you're syncing to OneDrive but again, very importantly, make sure you backup all such folders/files somewhere else first as deleting items from OneDrive will likely also delete the copies you have stored locally. Next, sign out of OneDrive. Lastly, disable OneDrive from automatically starting when you switch on your computer. You can do this from Windows Settings > Apps > Startup, then move the little switch for Microsoft OneDrive to the Off position. If you're talking about the Save As location of MS Office documents defaulting to OneDrive, this can be changed within the settings for affected applications: In Word or Excel for example, click File on the top left of the Toolbar, then click Options at the bottom left of the next screen. An Options box for the application will open. Click Save and, on the right, you should find a check box saying Save to Computer by default. Select this then, in the field below, select a default file location. Third party applications may have a similar setting.

If you're using Windows you can use Microsoft's built-in Edge browser to add text and highlighting to PDF documents without the need to download or install anything else. Foxit, as suggested above, may be a good alternative but be aware that early versions of this application used to change file associations and document types in a rather devious way so that, even if you subsequently uninstalled Foxit and chose a different application, these wouldn't work as intended without editing the Registry to get rid of Foxit's meddling. This may not be true of online/recent versions.

One other thing to check is that, after fibre installation, BT doesn't double-bill you by charging you for the new connection and your old ADSL/copper connection (assuming that you don't wish to keep the latter active.) Also be aware that, should you cease the old ADSL service, you may also lose other services associated with it, such as phone landline connections and email addresses. Although my FTTP connection went fairly smoothly (despite some delays due to difficulties with the local topography) BT did get themselves into a bit of a pickle when it came to billing me the correct amount for the appropriate services. Thankfully this was all sorted with a single phone call.

Last year I watched a squirrel foraging in my back garden getting ever closer to a fox that was curled up nearby. The squirrel clearly had no idea that the fox was there. The fox, on the other hand, was very aware of the squirrel. The squirrel got to within about a foot of the fox before the latter struck... but the squirrel, with lightning fast reactions and an astonishing burst of speed, managed to escape by sprinting the twenty or so feet to the nearest tree and shooting up the trunk like a rocket. This was very unlike another scenario about six or seven years ago when a clearly sick and very disorientated squirrel was caught by a fox at around 2 O'Clock in the morning. A few days later I spotted another squirrel lying dead in the road outside. I'd guess that there was a disease of some sort spreading through the local squirrel population as there was certainly an over-abundance of them here at the time.

It depends entirely on your circumstances. After I switched to a smart water meter I paid about £5 per month for the first year as I had so much credit in hand based upon what Thames Water calculated I'd been (over)paying previously. I now still pay around £450 less per year than I was pre-smart meter. I requested my meter a couple of years ago and it was installed and activated about a week or so later.

I received a delivery yesterday afternoon. Yep, Sunday! I'm not critisising the delivery staff, but I bet they got paid "double/triple overtime" or somesuch for doing that. I'm guessing that this was a "strategic" delivery to show that deliveries are being made within a certain timeframe so RM can avoid penalties for service failures. The letters I received were recently sent. Meanwhile, I suspect that my overdue items likely still languish in a huge unsorted pile somewhere in the depths of Highshore Road.

I've been using the Cornell Lab "Bird ID" app since @MrsR suggested it in July. I must say that it has proven to be accurate and fast to correctly identify bird calls. So much so that I made a bit of a game out of it based on who could identify the bird call first; the app or me. Currently it's 11-8 in favour of the app 😞 However, in just one morning a couple of days ago two complete anomalies appeared in the app. A Black Redstart and a Spotted Flycatcher. Whilst not entirely impossible, I suspect the presence of these birds here to be extremely unlikely. Has anyone ever actaully seen either of these two birds in ED? Might the app be correct? Depending on your answers/observations I could be about to go another two goals down 🙂

All the commercial airliners you see (or hear!) flying low over ED are coming into land at either Heathrow or London City airports. As pointed out earlier, the City destined flights are lowest and take a wide route over ED towards NW London before banking and coming back Eastwards following the Thames over the city towards City Airport. The City flights are all smaller aircraft, no big 747's or A380's. I find that the City aircraft are much quieter than the Heathrow bound ones but it all depends on your precise location and your localised conditions... much like the perception of noise output from GALA! But, it's much quieter now than it used to be. No Concorde (the glorious roar from which I fondly miss) and no "Tridents" which I recall were especially noisy. There are no long, black jet exhaust trails either!

This was posted through my letterbox late last week. May not be a charity, as such, but could be of interest nevertheless.

If it's an LCD TV it might be an inverter/backlight problem which may be fixable by replacing or repairing a circuit board. If you discover that it's a definite fault that needs repairing, these folks may be able to help. A repair might be less than the cost of a new TV. AC Electronics 76 Brockley Rise London SE23 1LN email: [email protected] Telephone: 020 8690 3828 Website: https://acelectronics-london.co.uk/ They recently did good work for me by bringing my ancient VHS/DVD recorder back to life.

The first (and last) time on this forum I recommended advanced training for motorists (ADI/ROSPA), road training for cyclists and even re-introducing the Green Cross Code for pedestrians, I was told that my ideas were "stupid"! Clearly I was talking to people who aren't prepared to learn anything new because they believe that they already know everything 😞 Therein lies the real problem.

^^^ That's really interesting. I'm not very far from Camberwell Old Cemetary and, just a few weeks ago, was surprised to see a Magpie taking a drink from one of my bird baths whilst a fox was lying very close by in full view. Some days later I saw a fox and a neighbour's cat casually sitting only about 4ft. apart, each totally unconcerned about the presence of the other. Formerly they'd have kept a much more respectful (and mutually safe) distance. It's the friendliest, or at least the most tolerant, I've ever seen these species interact with one another. My (totally unscientific) gut feeling is that it's because foxes are becoming less and less wild and predatory and surviving more by simply scavenging scraps of food left by us humans. The result is that they don't hunt/chase or even bother investigating other animals in search of prey at all any more and merely routinely visit the regular spots where they're likely to find scrap food left by us. The other animals will have observed this and follow the foxes around knowing that they're unlikely to be considered prey themselves and can just hoover up whatever remains or even feed alongside their former predators because food is so plentiful.

For comparison, my last three years with LV: +6% +12% -1% No claims for 40 years. Next renewal due in October. Hope I'm not in for a rude awakening this year!

Yep, sorry, that's the blurb I received in the post yesterday. There's a similar consultation for Dulwich Village here: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dulwich-village-streets-for-people-consultation/ The Dulwich Hill and Dulwich Village schemes are the only two current active/open consultations I'm aware of. Others may have already closed or are yet to be started.

Scroll to the bottom of the linked article below and click "Online Survey" in the "Give Us Your Views" box: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dulwich-hill-streets-for-people-consultation/

True, but you can at least choose to leave those two questions blank, thereby not positively voting for any of the available options, then leave a comment stating that you don't require a CPZ at all, as you suggested. I agree, that's not ideal, but better than nothing.

Whatever I may or may not do, you at least concede that the events, whatever they may be, will limit access to the public highway for emergency service vehicles. Surely then that's another good reason to not allow such events to take place.

Re. the Dulwich Village area, ticketed events or not, the point is that they will further limit or prevent the ability to use the area for its originally intended purpose i.e. as a public highway. That, apart from the possible noise, is also one of the main objections to events like Gala taking place in what is supposed to, according to the Southwark web site, "provide a pleasant refuge for both the local community and wildlife." Something it can hardly do during the times it's turned into a construction site and music festival.

^^^^ I'm astonished that they confess that the area concerned "forms a part of the public highway" and yet then suggest that, since having already severely restricted part of that very same public highway, they want to further commandeer it for what are, in essence, private events! And, to stay on topic, they (the Council) would appear to be trying the same tactic with parks. ...Oh, and, for the second year running, Gala was barely audible in these Southern borders of ED, which has not always been the case for events held in the park or on the Common.

Nothing. If you provide an abundant supply of free food, they'll feed on it, even in preference to their "natural" food. As to the "hanging" Jay in a previous post (by sunbob), I'd suggest that (without having actually seen it myself), short of a local witches' coven, the poor bird probably just spotted what it believed to be a tasty morsel on the roof, was unfortunately caught up in some random debris and fluttered about trying to get free before ending up in the roof guttering. Sad, but also completely natural.

This has been my alarm clock for the last few weeks: Unfortunately it doesn't have a Snooze Button! But at least it's not as raucous as that other medium-sized green bird that frequents these parts 🙂

So we have: 1. People who own cars that they use for various perfectly legitimate reasons whether that be social/pleasure, domestic, business, mobility etc. 2. Other (relatively silent) folk don't own cars but are quite happy and capable to walk/cycle or use public transport. 3. A small but extremely vociferous group who don't own cars but have the belief that no one else should do either. 4. The Council, who, like any big business, will adopt almost any tactic to maximise their gains and minimise their losses whilst retaining their business/political credentials. 5. A few individuals that use this forum as a pulpit from which to preach their interminable "I Am The Way" political sermons. We have here the perfect recipe for another 100+ page "behemoth" where everybody will agree with nobody.