The Thamesmead Grump

DOWN ON THE RIVER

Went out on Saturday and saw this Common Seal sitting on the river mud across from the golf course. You see them quite a lot now but this one was putting on an especially good show in the setting Sun.

ON A RIVER THEME

I am not the most qualified identifier of birds and I have real trouble with juvenile Gulls which all look the same to me, but I think this is a Lesser Black Backed Gull. Not very exciting, there are lots of them along the river bank, especially in the Winter but I quite liked this one.

It was just sitting there, minding it's own business

 

Then it spotted me

 

 That was it, off it went

I was then treated to a convoy of Naval vessels. Not actually a convoy as such, as they were coming up the river one at a time but interesting none the less. I had no idea what was going on so I did a bit of Googling and came up with this.

It seems that you get these gatherings of NATO vessels sometimes after an exercise. It seems that HMS Grimsby and BNS Godetia arrived in the morning. I caught the afternoon shift.

I won't give a full description of the ships as you can get that by clicking the link above.

First along was the EML Admiral Cowan of the Estonian Navy. I don't know why the Estonians would name their ship after a British Admiral.

There then followed an interlude when these two vessels came by at high speed. I don't know anything about them but I suspect that if I told you, I would have to kill you.

This is the Hinnøy of the Norwegian Navy

Followed by the Tālivaldis of the Latvian Navy. I was so engrossed in taking pictures of gulls that I nearly missed this one.

Last, but not least was the Shiedam of the Royal Netherlands Navy.