drplokta

They've just finished an eight year programme to refurbish a social housing estate near us, and bring it up to modern levels of energy conservation. http://www.24dash.com/socialhousing/20852.htm for details. The highest annual fuel cost saving they have seen was £278 -- let's be generous and say the average was £200 per household. There are 186 properties on the estate. So the total annual saving is around £37,200 and it will take nearly 300 years to pay back the capital cost. Retrofitting the housing stock to meet modern standards of energy conservation is not worth doing. (If you're concerned about global warming, I think it safe to say that the same amount of money invested in carbon sequestration would have removed a lot more CO² from the atmosphere.)

Butterflies: 7 Red Admiral, 8 Holly Blue.

No new species, but some good photos of assorted waterfowl.

( Photos behind the cut. )

Here's our local Great Crested Grebe and her chicks (who are sadly too large now to ride on their mother's back, as they do when very young).

( Photo behind the cut. )

I finally got some photos of a fox, a young one playing with a stick on Mellish Sports Ground.

( Here be photos. )

Birds: 47 Gadwall (I'm fairly sure).

( Photo behind the cut. )

Birds: 45 Swift (no photo), 46 Common Tern (photos below).

( A couple of long distance photos of a common tern, and a better picture of a small white butterfly. )

For those who were worried, the Trustees of Borough Market say (paraphrased) "Please don't try to save us, because we don't need saving."

Reptiles: 1 Red-Eared Terrapin.

( Here's a rather distant photo, with free bonus swan and goose. )

No new species, but there were a pair of sparrowhawks in the woods this morning, and after I got the photo below she flew off with a twig, so I presume they're nesting.

( Sparrowhawk photo. )