Glorious moment in the Garden this afternoon.
As you may have noticed, I don't talk about raptors much. This is due to the subhuman §€@&%($!±&@€ * who so assiduously persecute them. So, I find myself limited to obvious passing birds or vague references with no specific locations. I know it is highly unlikely anyone would want to bother urban Buzzards, for example, but it's good practice to keep the rules simple.
[[* Ancient Devonian swear-words that- ah, you know the drill.]]
Breaking said rules, a 1s female Sparrowhawk spent almost 6 minutes sat on the shed roof this afternoon. I'd call her a wandering non-breeder who'd noticed the Sparrows zipping back and forth to their nests... Stunning, crippling, ridiculous - all these are good descriptions of the view I got of her. :D The Sparrows all hid in the nest boxes and shut up - even the chicks stopped cheeping! It got very quiet and very still. Wow.
Right then, back to business.
Yesterday morning, after the fun and games at the Nose on Saturday, I decided to try a seawatch - it looked good and blowy-with-showers when I got up, but by the time I set off the sun had come out. It stayed out, the bastard. Still, the coffee was made and I'm nothing if not stubborn, so on I went, finding [Devon Birder] there already. The sun made things interesting, but it wasn't completely dead and as [Devon Birder] left, [Devon Birder] was arriving, so I always had someone to chat to. [[It has been suggested that all seawatching spots have chat-activated warning lights, so late-comers can know not to bother.. ;) ]]. Star bird was a s/pl Black Tern, which picked it's moment to head by north when [Devon Birder] had just packed up his scope. [Ouch] It was well out and moving fast, not that that was any consolation..
In the 2 1/2 hours I gave it, 38 Manxies and a single Balearic went by south along with 48 Kitts and 14 Fulmars. 20 Gannet went south and 2 north. [Like I said, it wasn't completely dead..]. I don't bother counting Guilles at this time of year [due to the colonies making counts of passage impossible], but I keep an eye on the passing auks [just in case] and picked out a single Razorbill flying south with 3 Guilles. The wind was in a lovely area just east of south, nice white horses on the sea - if there'd just been some nice squally showers to go with it I'm sure we would have hit the big time. Bladdy weather....
Getting home, I looked east at Bee-eater and west at Black-winged Stilts and thought; "Aaaarrrrrghhhh..." Some times you just don't have the energy - especially when they're not in Devon [[He says, having seen the 'Bee-eater at Start' thing and wailed quite pathetically just now...]]. I decided to be boring and go for a toddle with the Folks instead. [[Yawn.]] We went to A Wooded Valley**, where we got rained on. First it rained rain. Then it rained Wood Warblers. 7 of them. Crippling views, including Wood Warbler vs Great Big Caterpillar. Also Tree Pipit right overhead and Crossbills. Tilly saw some sheep and jumped in the water, [not quite at the same time, though I think she would have liked to combine the two if she could...] so she was happy. The sun shone, the wind blew, the trees were beautiful, did I mention all the Wood Warblers? :)
[[** I know they're not Schedule 1, but I think they deserve it, so no specific sites apart from Yarner.]]
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