January 2014
3rd January 2014
Our first visit to the SQ in 2014 ! Happy New Year to all our friends and supporters! As we arrived, the SQ was shrouded in low cloud - quite a contrast to Mátrafüred village itself, which was bathed in sunshine. But as we explored, the sun broke through. Some clown had been cutting branches off the poor little 'acid tree' that always suffers punishment, and the rotten 'acid tree' over the other side had been snapped off. Why?? A new species was found, possibly a type of Whorl Snail, but not identified as yet.
6th January 2014
As I walked from the entrance to the pathway that leads to the Bowl, I saw some cut tree branches on the ground. As I walked over them I saw what had happened: someone (who obviously was given a bow saw for Christmas) had cut down the large tree that stood on the corner of the pathways. Last year this tree was full of Waxwings ! The main wood had been removed (for firewood?). Is it just a child messing about with Daddy's saw, or someone trying to be funny? We have so little tree cover at the site as it is. On the plus side, the recent rain of Saturday night/Sunday morning kept the water level up in Rock Bath 1.
22nd January 2014
We've had quite a lot of rain over the last 3 days, so we thought we'd go to the SQ to see what the result was. We were pleasantly surprised to see that some quite large areas of water had formed in the Bowl, especially in the 'Coffee Pool'. And .... my waterfall extension worked !!! It was delivering a steady flow of water into the base section, as planned. There was also a significant amount of water in Rock Baths 1 and 2, and a 'dribble' in RB 3. While there, we cleared away the cut branches, the old Christmas tree, and the lengths of electrical cable which had been thrown into the site.
26th January 2014
After last night's quite heavy snowfall (4 inches, 10 cms) we decided to go to the SQ to record the scene. There was a flock of about 12 Fieldfare - Turdus pilaris - Fenyőrigó flying around the site. They called as they flew, but didn't land. We also found footprints of Roe Deer - Capreolus capreolus -Őz in the snow.