Near Misses and Nearly Missed

Yes, horrific title 'humour' again...

Apologies for the lack of posting, I really don't know what came over me, it just kept slipping my mind. Getting old... Long day in the field and the first bout of evening birding* of the year may also be contributory factors.

[[*Evening birding, {heading out in the evening for the dusk chorus, last burst of feeding, roosting etc.} is not quite as good as being up first thing, but oh it's so much easier to do! ;) ]]

Right then, on with the jibber-jabber.

After Friday's Willowy Goodness, I gave the Patch more bashing, hoping for migrants and maybe even a Hoopoe of my very own [ha ha ha...]. I managed some nice Bullfinches and another near-miss with what sounded very like a Garden Warbler [[I narrowly missed what looked and sounded horribly like one earlier in the week {This was cut from my last post because I didn't want to lump in a huge paragraph. I don't want to stick one in here, so will limit myself [yes, this is a big cut-down] to saying that I only ID on sight this early due to vocal overlap between birds not in full song. }, it might have been a Blackcap being diabolical, so no-go. If only I'd seen it's head.. ::Shrugs::]].

As the sun went down on Saturday, there was a single GC Grebe off Blackball. Monday saw more Patch-bashing in the breeze, with only singing Chiffs approaching report-worthiness. In between was a yomp up to Fur Tor with the Folks, which was lots of fun, though not a single Wheatear did we see. The combination of a wet winter and a very dry March has given some interesting conditions up there, with the wet bits being wet, but everything else dried out and parched-looking. Tilly managed to fall into the Dart, which was very funny - she had gone down a sloping rock to get a drink from a deep bit, put a paw into the water as she lent forward, but the rock was slippery and she went somersaulting in. :D After swimming around and finding a way out, she got her revenge by making sure to shake next to each of us in turn ['orrible dog..]. It was a good walk, with the mist pretty much burnt off as we reached Cut Hill - doubtless it helped to keep it quiet [apart from the inevitable TenTorsies..]. The day was neatly rounded off by the sight of a single Swallow, sat on a wire at Bellever on our way back.

Today, with mist, murk, and rain I decided to give the car a run and went down to Berry Head. A gungy weekday should mean it'd be nice and quiet after the morning wog-dalkers, so a good shot at actually seeing a Blackstart? Yeah, right... The strimmers in the South Fort were unfortunate, the guy with the border collies, who I swear was following me around in the North Fort was annoying, and the schoolkids climbing in the quarry were by then quite funny... Oh well, 'nearly' again. The usual residents were present and correct, so on to a seawatch! Definitely sea watching [and mist watching, for that matter]; 30 Gannets, 3 Kittiwakes, a Common Gull and a Shelduck went by south. Not the worst seawatch ever, but wait - what's that trying to balance on top of a chunk of insulating foam? Only a frickin' Sarnie! Result. :) The seemingly promising [in a 'You never know what might show up..?' kind of way] light-ish wind and mist looked like it had failed to deliver, so I decided that an hour was enough and packed up the Big Scope [hardly used, the mist was at bin range], then took one last bin scan before leavi- "Ooh, what's that on the sea? Taking off and flying out south east, it's got to be a Fulmar flying funny. Yeah, it's just taken off and that's why it's flying like a Balearic, any second now it'll start flying like a Fulmar and turn to show off it's big white Fulmar head and go "Ha ha, got you going!'. Though it does have a dark rear end, the wings are wrong too and its still flying like a Balearic. Oh look, it's not got a big white Fulmar head either, because it is a Balearic!"** Bingo.

:D

Balearic Shearwater; any time, any weather, you never know.

Then, to cap it off, there were two very showy Wheatears in the quarry.

[[**Yes, that was me trying to string a Balearic into a Fulmar... Dear oh dear oh dear.]]