Sunday's Stuff

I said not that long ago that 'You can't believe what you read on the internet'. Seemingly, this includes me in reference to what I write, too.. But more on that later.

A Sunday morning stroll about bits of the patch with some rellys brought about not a huge amount of birds, though a Cormorant of the form Haigi was of interest to me at least off Babbacombe Pier. ;) A pair of Collared Doves looked to be trying for an 'early even for them' record up my road, and well, that was about it. There were Blue Tits, though. Lots of Greenfinches and Coal Tits on the feeders, as well as the usual Blue, Great, Sparrow mix.

Rellys having departed, the folks unwisely asked me for suggestions for an afternoon stroll [they really ought to have learned by now... :) ]. Thus we took a wander around Clennon. :D

Tilda Swindog had lots of fun on the grass, though she seemed a bit disappointed not to be able to find any sheep to go bonkers at, she made do with a crow sat in a tree, which she decided was a squirrel.... A male Gadwall and two male Shovelors, plus half a dozen Tufties and a Little Grebe were on the big pond. We would have spent a while watching the Grebe preening, but there was a party of 8 Mute Swans, and the cob seemed so proud to have 6 cygnets that he led them over and tried to start a fight with Tilly! I kid ye not, they made a beeline for her, cob in font with his wings up and of course Tilly wasn't going to miss an opportunity like that. On we went hurriedly, with the sound of swans making chicken noises behind us..

Before all that, though, we had to have a look for the Yellow-browed Warbler, didn't we? 0:)

I'm not super-familiar with Clennon - I went there in the rain for the Penduline, and before that you're talking school-days hockey in the horizontal rain.... Thus it was that finding the storm drain was not entirely straight forward. A fallen Willow very near the YMCA didn't help. but eventually we got to the spot, which is utterly unmistakeable once you know exactly where it is. ;) Having taken the scenic route led us past 4 Chiffchaffs, including one showing all the tristis features - it was even calling, which was nice of it. Sheltered from the wind but still in the sun, there were plenty of birds around and within a few minutes of our finding the spot, the Yellow-brow put in an appearance. A lightning-fast one, unfortunately. "I got the head as well as the body" is the best I can say [if only it'd been like that on Saturday...] [[Oh, stop moping!!]]

A quick bit of background...

Yellow-brow is a special bird for us - my first was in my parents' back garden, you see, back during the 2005 influx, when one came in fairly regularly for 2 minute aphid blitzes. They called it the garden warbler [very logically]. When I got eyes on it I almost had a seizure... This little fluffy hummingbird was right outside the kitchen window; what a show. :D

So, we all know Yellow-browed Warbler from the comfort of the kitchen, watching it perform hover-y spiral routes over a young conifer. Real life blink-and-you'll-miss-it view [note the singular] was a bit of a disappointment for the folks, alas, as they missed it...

There were some gorgeous point-blank Long-tailed Tits, though, and yet another female Sprawk cruised over [a Crow went up to do some annoying, but changed it's mind after suddenly finding the hawk behind it.. :) ] so it wasn't an entire loss. I hung back* while they walked on, Tilly having found a gap in the driving range fence and had tried for the 'tangled lead in brambles' game, but no further showing was had [elusive is not an overstatement].

[*For about 20 minutes.. I am duly ashamed]