The House(s) of Fran_mart

  Having done 1,000 km (not hard with a trip to Mallacoota and back at 350 km each way) it was time for the Mazda to get its first service.   The drive up to Canberra on Monday 13 June had some potential to be interesting.  The first element of this was realising it was the last day of the long weekend which opens the ski season.  So there was potential for chaos on the stretch from Cooma to Canberra.  A second element was the poor weather - cold and damp - leading to an Alpine weather warning from Brown Mountain to Cooma.  So we set off early to minimise the first issue and hope that the second was not too bad. As it turned out there was no evidence of snow or ice on the 'Alpine' stretch.  Rather than the forecast 2C it was 4C when we came through Nimmitabel.   I noticed a rally car parked by the bakery in Nimmitabel and guessed there had been an event at Bega. The results  are  here , and lots of photos etc in  this Facebook post . As we left that village there was plenty of

 Following a post by Dave Flumm about Firecrests and their recent arrival in the Old Dart I looked up the maps in the European Field Guides I have around the place to see how things have changed.  The first is Peterson et al from 1965 (reprinted in 1972).  The line barely brushes England but the text says 'has bred'. Next is Heinzel et al from 1972 showing mainly a Winter bird (blue) but a small green (breeds and year round) dot just visible around Oxford(?). Finally Bruun et al  (1987) show a much larger breeding area (purple) with a wintering area off to the West including Cornwall