Stargazing With Mark Willis - May/June

23rd May: The Moon will be close to Castor And Pollux, the main stars of the constellation of Gemini. Castor is one of the brightest stars in the sky, 50 light years distant and Pollux, 34 light years distant. Quite fun to imagine that aliens who have Castor as their sun, who also have equipment that can receive UK TV channels, would be seeing such programmes as Colditz, Pebble Mill At One, Are You Being Served, Emmerdale Farm and Rainbow... Aliens who have the star Pollux as their sun, would be seeing the final episodes of The Benny Hill Show, Doctor Who (the controversial cancellation) and the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series.

24th May: You will see the Moon close to the planet Mars. Mars is turning out to be, almost daily, a more fascinating planet. Valles Marineris is a system of canyons that runs along the Martian surface east of the Tharsis region. At more than 4,000km long, 200km wide and up to 7km deep. Our Grand Canyon is 446km long, 29km wide and 1.6km deep. Just like our own Grand Canyon, Mars’s Valles www.chelmsfordcommunityradio.com mark.willis@chelmsfordcommunityradio.com

Marineris was also formed by water, probably around 4 billion years ago. Back then, Mars was a warm, temperate planet with oceans, rivers and streams, very like Earth is today. Today, Mars is a cold and dry desert planet.

21st June - Summer Solstice: The longest day and the shortest night. Officially, summer begins today.

New Moon: On 19th May and 18th June there will be a new Moon. This means the skies will be extra dark which is a great opportunity to see planets, galaxies and deep space objects.

As usual, email me with any questions.

Wildlife Corner - By Nick Green

The BBC stated that March and April 2023 were the wettest for 90 years. There’s still also a severe drought in Spain and Portugal.

The rarest national migrant in April was undoubtedly the blackwinged kite (Elanus caeruleus) that graced Newtown, Powys in Wales for just 5 minutes on 18th April, a first for Britain and Ireland. This species has been long predicted with a population in Iberia expanding initially from Morocco into Spain in the 1860s, then into France in the 1970s. Populations in southern Europe have increased thanks to human activity, including agriculture and livestock rearing. Recent records have also have come from the Channel Isles, Germany, Denmark and Poland. The black-winged (or black-shouldered) kite is a superspecies with populations in Europe, America, South Africa, South Asia and Australia, The European population winters in southern Spain and North Africa

Identification

It’s size is about that of the kestrel and it similarly hovers and hunts over grasslands. it has grey plumage with black primaries and shoulders (greater wing coverts). The large eye is amber red. Food it eats small mammals, with voles comprising 95% of its diet, as well as reptiles and insects.

Spring butterflies included: brimstone, orange-tip, comma, peacock, red admiral, small tortoiseshell. Spring bird migrants typically included: little ringed plover, sand martin, swallow, hobby, yellow & white wagtails, black redstart, nightingale, wheatear, ring ouzel, hobby, swift.

Selected April 2023 Highlights

Abberton Reservoir EWT: 2 Slavonian grebe, long-tailed duck, 10 scaup, 3 smew, night heron, 8 Caspian gulls, spotted redshank, 20+ ruff; Wallasea Island RSPB: 1-2 spoonbill, hen harrier, 2 short-eared owls.

After the Greek city of Argos

Birmingham

Queen Elizabeth II

£250K

Richard Wilson

£458 million

He is a running athlete

11 stone in 1 year

£170,000 (specially built at Boreham)