Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. Not uncommon, I know. Bit annoying, especially when you have to get up Too Early to go to work. So, you wake up, look at the clock, think "0200. What does the 0 stand for? Oh goodie, I don't have to get up yet!" You're just about to re-collapse, when something goes "Hetsch!" "Hetsch!" Now you know you're awake, you know you heard it. Quite clear, maybe from the dark bit beyond the foot of your bed. "Hetsch!" it goes again. Or maybe they go... "Hetsch!" Very awake now, light on. Nothing there. "Hetsch!" Up. The brain, which has been spooling up [never very good first thing] points out that the roof up there [paint, cardboard, and tar] is thin enough to hear all sorts of things through, isn't it, and haven't you heard audiomig through it before? "What bird goes 'hetsch!'?" it then asks itself. Pause. I know this one. Click. Snipe! Ooh, they must have been low to be that loud - maybe skimming the rooftops going to or from the allotments up the hill? [newly thawed]. Snipe, here! Brilliant! Argh, look at the time...
That was yesterday. Fieldfare's still knocking around - sorry knocking the Blackbirds around - but a neighbour's been playing Bob the Builder, so the birds haven't been much in evidence.
Now then, what to do tomorrow? Weather seems to say wet and windy and not unfavourable for first seawatch of the year. Todd's version of Canada at Slimbridge. Mobile and elusive Pallid Harrier around the wild wild west of cornwall. No reports of annoying-yet-still-adorable Smew since Tuesday [surprise surprise....].
Decisions, decisions.....
EDIT; Thanks to Certain Webmasters for updating their sites, I now know said Smew are still on the Exe, though mobile, and there's another redhead at Slapton! Now, there are doubtless many who are saying to themselves "Well, if that fool had a pager he'd know all this, now wouldn't he?". This is of course true, but [as I'm sure you know I'm going to say] I'm backward like that.
See you on the Exe!
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