Leaving the hotel, we went to the bus stop. We have enjoyed two innovations with regard to the buses.

Electronic ticket

The first is that one can buy bus tickets on one’s phone with Apple Pay. This creates an easily identifiable electronic ticket that can be shown to the bus driver. The ticket includes a coloured band with a random word on it. This identifies the ticket as valid today.

Bus stop QR code

The second is that each bus stop has a QR code. You scan this and it gives you a display of the next few buses to arrive at that stop and how many minutes away they are. TfL, please take note!

Oasis

For breakfast we went to what seems to have become our “usual cafe”, Oasis. They were quite busy but as we were not in a hurry, it didn’t matter.

Bus station

Then we went across the road to the bus station and waited for the number 20 bus.

View from Portsdown Hill

This took us to Portsdown Hill from which Tigger wanted to show me the splendid views of which I include two photos. Above, we are looking towards Portsmouth. You might be able to make out the Spinnaker and in the distance, the Isle of Wight.

Looking SE towards Hayling Island

In this view we can see as far as Hayling Island and beyond.

Having admired the view, it remained only to take the bus back the way we had come.

Queen’s Hotel

We left the bus near this edifice, built in 1861 as a private dwelling called Southsea House and converted into a hotel in 1867.

Southsea Common

We crossed the common to the seafront.

Mozzarella Joe’s

As we felt it was time for lunch and Mozzarella Joe’s was nearby, we went in. There are tables inside but there is also a broad terrace right on the sea and that, of course, is where we chose to sit. In fact, we went on sitting there long after we had finished eating, with the kind permission of the management.

A view from the terrace

The dark line on the horizon is again the Isle of Wight and we watched the ferry and the hovercraft crossing back and forth.

Isle of Wight Hovercraft

The Isle of Wight hovercraft comes into its nearby dock.

Starling
Photo by Tigger

Where there is food there are hungry mouths. In particular, the terrace was patrolled by starlings like this one snapped by Tigger.

Looking for handouts
Photo by Tigger

People tend to feed the birds and the starlings are used to this and have become quite bold, like this one photographed by Tigger.

Gull gatecrashes

Other birds tried to gatecrash the feast like this gull.

A cormorant splashes down
Photo by Tigger

Tigger spotted this cormorant splashing down. A moment later it had already dived and disappeared.

We left Joe’s and went out onto the common. There were gulls resting in the grass but they suddenly became active…

Tigger had gifts to bestow

…on perceiving that Tigger had gifts to bestow. Some caught the morsels in mid-air in a fine display of flying skills.

From here we returned to the hotel for tea and a rest.

Portsmouth Grammar School

Later we went for the last outing of the day. Our lunch had been sufficiently filling for us not to need supper. We started with a stroll round the block where we encountered this impressive gateway. It is the entrance to one of the several buildings belonging to Portsmouth Grammar School, founded in 1732 and the city’s oldest school.

We then caught a bus to – guess where? Yes, you guessed it – to the Hard.

Evening over Portsmouth Harbour

It is not quite sunset but still a pretty view for all that. We had arrived at the magic hour when the flocks of starlings are murmurating. Clouds of starlings fly in apparently erratic patterns of flight until suddenly all plunging under the jetty on which we were standing to their night’s roost.

Crowd after crowd, large and small, flew their strange acrobatic flight before disappearing under the jetty as though sucked in by a giant aspirator.

A small murmuration
Photo by Tigger

I tried to photograph some of the larger murmurations but the birds are all but invisible against the dark clouds. Tigger succeeded in photographing this small group. How do the birds decide which of their number to follow? The rapid reflexes that enable them to follow the sudden twists and turns of their apparently random flight path are marvellous.

Starlings in the rigging

One group gathered in the rigging of HMS Warrior. At first, they were scattered along several lined but gradually moved in closer together. We kept watching, hoping to see them take off and complete their flight to the roost. Perhaps this was a particularly stubborn group that liked to wait until last because we eventually left before they made their move.

HMS Warrior at evening

Though I have photographed HMS Warrior before (several times), I have caught it again in my final picture of the day because it is always a fine and elegant sight.

We caught a bus back to the hotel and suffered a slight but amusing hitch. At the stop before ours, the driver, stopped the bus and explained to a passenger, an elderly possibly Chinese lady, that this was as close as the bus went to that passenger’s destination. The passenger did not understand and the driver explained it several times. She told the passenger which bus she needed and where to catch it. When the passenger did not understand the instructions, the driver said “I will show you” and thereupon, both passenger and driver left the bus and disappeared. If any of the remaining passengers (ourselves included) disapproved of this behaviour, none expressed their disapproval. We waited patiently for the driver to reappear, which she eventually did, climbing into the cab and continuing the journey.

We had only one stop to go and could have walked but I wanted to know the dénouement if the story and so we stayed to find out.

We walked from the bus stop to our hotel and took the lift to the third floor and our room where we of course made tea and ruminated on the day’s adventures. Thus ended my birthday in Portsmouth.