Birds and burning hair

I think I must be catching it from temeres...

Bird list for today: sparrow, starling, robin, magpie, blackbird, great tit, avocet, shellduck, teal, curlew.

I'm sure he'd have seen many more and identified the numerous gulls that I didn't know what they were, but I'm proud I managed the last four on the list at all.

Judith's technique for identifing birds:

It's like the one on the RSPB logo so it must be an avocet.

I've been on Brownsea Island often enough to manage shelduck - they turn up often enough for even a klutz like me to identify them and they're big and colourful which always helps.

Teal - guessed wildly at teal and was very pleased when the lady next to me in the bird hide identified it as such without me telling her my guess.

Curlew - looked it up on the chart behind me. Just kept looking until I found the right shape of bill (long and slightly curved) and was relieved when the plumage also matched.

I was out rhododendron clearing, as is my occasional wont on a Sunday. We had some good bonfires going and it has now conclusively been proven that I cannot distinguish the smell of burning hair from that of burning rhodendron.

Even when the hair in question is my own...

I was quite surprised when people told me a I had a burnt patch! It felt odd when I ran my fingers through it, still does, but I neither felt, nor smelt a thing. It didn't burn the scalp, I hasten to add, and the hair will suffer no long term harm.

Industrial Archeology and clay mines

Does anyone know much about clay mining?

On Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, we're currently clearing rhododendron from
an area that used to be dug for clay. The clay was pretty low grade, used for
drainage pipes and the like, but we've uncovered a lot of ventilation shafts.
They look like giant well heads, about ten feet in diameter and are made of
brick. We've found six or seven now - and the top of all of them is very close
to sea level. The rim is maybe five or six feet above the sea.

If they were ventilation for a mine, then the mine would have been entirely
below sea level. I find it hard to believe that a mine for clay would have been
econimic, especially as the surrounding 'rock' seems to be a loose sand.
Shoring it up would have been difficult and dangerous.

A lot of clay was dug from the surface; an old map of the island shows a pool
called 'clay pit' which we rediscovered around three years ago (it was
completely hidden by rhododendron and eventually turned out to be a hundred
metres or so in length).

Why mine underground? Perhaps digging the pit deeper and deeper risked
subsidence or too much incursion of sea water. The pit is effectively at sea
level with a barrier of only a few feet between it and the sea. (It may have
been higher in earlier times as there are some steep slopes close to the area
that could have been cut back by digging)