28 February, 2010

Frustration or Elation

Can you guess?

Well, the weather misbehaved big style - choosing to rain destruction upon europe instead of birds upon us. Tut. Having gotten up veeery early, seen what wasn't doing, and gone back to bed [I have no shame], I eventually decided to wander to the south side of Tor Bay and see what was a' goin' on. Plan was to have a wander around Berry Head - check on the colony, see if anything was happening on the sea, that sort of thing - then head to Broadsands for wintering passerines and more sea checking, with hopefully the assembling gulls containing something interesting.

You're expecting an 'Of Mice and Men' quote now, aren't you?

You're not getting it.

No, not even if you say 'pleeeeaassse'.

They've been doing lots of work up at Berry Head - shiny new visitor centre and cannons and fences and cattle grids and a hide! Ahem. Hide points at the Guille colony - at an angle, so you can't really see all of it. Little narrow windows to make it just that little bit harder for scopes and a door that doesn't shut properly. But there is a big wooden Fulmar, operatic Guillemots, and those funny external shutters should help keep the rain out. I've heard much speculation about how long it'll be before the chavs burn it - I reckon it might last as long as the World Cup Final, but maybe I'm an optimist.

The day proved sunny and dry and the great mass of 'normal' people were out. With their kids and dogs and kites and scooter things. I didn't see a single Chiff of any colour at Broadsands, and Berry was quiet passerine-wise too. It was amazing - no sooner had the kids on bikes gone than the kites started, then they left and the dog-walkers made sure to walk all around every car park... Even as I was leaving, they were still there. Ah well.
The sunshine didn't deter a few Gannets from fishing fairly close inshore, and a little blue trawler by the name of 'Dee-J' [yes, really] acquired several hundred larid fans when she pulled in her nets and headed in towards Brixham. This latter event caused me more annoyance than interest, as I'd previously been playing a strange version of hide and seek with a certain 1w gull.

How do you play hide and seek over open sea? Well, you need some big waves, some other gulls to run interference, and be far enough off to need a scope - not hard when you're talking immature gull ID. This particular individual caught my eye by being very white, and having an unusual flight action - more buoyant and elegant I think is the best way to sum it up. It also had a neat tail bar, dark secondaries, a half-size window, a very white head with streaking in a 'boa', very pale underwings and belly, a nice straight dark bill with a little pink at the base, more on the lower mandible than the upper, dark tertials with pale 'thumb-nails', a grey saddle.. yeah, I was quite interested in this one. First saw it off the seawatching point, played the hide and seek for about 10 minutes before losing it. I moved up to the battery, and re-found the gull with a raft of about 40 resting gulls - it still wouldn't behave and nipped over to a different raft before it finally seemed to settle. I was waiting for it to pose properly, or even better stretch, when the trawler pulled its act. I hung around in the cold at Broadsands waiting for an appearance [ok, hoping is a better term] but the pesky 'Dee-J' stayed outside the harbour and kept a lot of gulls' attention, the high high tide meant the gull roost was well offshore, and I didn't see my possible if not probable again. Without a closer look - and preferably a view of tibia length and some nice diamonds and anchors - I'm not happy about even typing the C-word.

Definitely frustration today.


Edit: In my frustration yesterday, I neglected to mention the Black-necked Grebes [or possibly grebe, if it moved very fast] that showed well, close in on both sides of Churston Point, and the three R-B Mergansers that showed much less well beyond the rough line of G C Grebes and roosting gulls. No divers seen!

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