Something From the Weekend

Apologies for the delay.. er, again. And the lack of a reasonable excuse.. again. What will you do?

Soooo.... Saturday I gave the Patch an almighty Bash, such as it has not had for far too long, considering that I am still supposed to be trying a Patch Yearlist and everything. I ignored the temptation to dash off down to 'Gwarra and thus missed the chance at a few Cory's [::Mutter mutter...::] and what did I get for my efforts? [Other than hot, that is] Well, I very nearly got what would have been a really good Patch Tick, but the little git that was almost certainly a Spot Fly flew back into a tree and evidently right on through it and out the other side, not to return... Drat.

I managed a mighty ::Coff coff:: 34 species, including an attempt at a seawatch [well, it rained on me, so I figured it was worth a go!] that gave precisely 2 Manxies past. North. Undoubted bird highlights were the juvenile Whitethroats, which were both cute and confiding :D Less good was seeing that the bladdy council have removed the gulls' pontoon from Torquay inner harbour [to fit in an extra row of grockles 'yachts'] - so finding a nice juvenile Caspian Gull* is going to be a) harder and b) less rewarding with the views. But such is life...

[[*What, you didn't think I'd given up on my deranged mission to find a Caspo on my Patch, did you?]]

On Sunday, after yet more Swift-watching, I headed up to Bowling Green for the tide, as I hadn't been there in an age. What was that? Tarting after Bearded Tits? Me? As if! The fact that I may have kept an eye on the reeds at the back and had two very brief views of 2+ juveniles of said species is entirely co-incidental. I was looking at the Reed Warbler feeding its own juvenile. And a Sedge Warbler. They weren't the welcome accidents while trying to re-find the Beardies. Honest.

I also put a lot of time into going through the 450-odd BHGs, but was rewarded with precisely 0 Meds and 0 Bonaparte's Gulls. The famous leucistic one was there, and it looked quite pretty. For a Black-'ead. A Wood Sandpiper was also present, as I heard it calling while walking towards the hide, but not a glimpse of it did I get. There were 2 Green Sands - moulting 1s birds, which looked quite odd - especially as one had a marked supercilium behind the eye [[Very naughty little sandpiper, that...]] - and a single Common Sand, which lurked out of sight of the hide. Other waders included 9 Lapwing [all adults - presumably failed breeders from nearby..], 11 Greenshank, at least 220 Blackwit, mostly in s/pl [all icelandica, naturally] and 2 Whimbrel. An adult and two juvenile Little Grebe were a pleasant sight, but aside from a few Teal, the only ducks were moulting Mallards. On the Clyst and looking very pretty were 2 Black Swans - no cygnets in view this year - and continuing the feral theme a few Canadas kept what was for them a very low profile. Further down the estuary, an adult kept an eye on a lone Shelduckling.

Little Egret count came to 19, Grey Heron count to 2 [one of which caught an eel, which put up the customary fight - at one point biting the Heron!]. It was a very nice way to spend an afternoon, with a surprise dragonfly sighting to boot - a female Scarce Chaser, no less, ovipositing at a location I probably shouldn't publicise. Speaking of dragons, yesterday at work an even bigger surprise; there I was, idly [ok, intently] looking out the window at lunch time, when a red darter sp. hove into view, caught something right outside the window and flew on! Not the Common Darter you'd expect, either - the lack of yellow on the thorax and deepness of red on the abdomen made it a Ruddy Darter - but a migrant from the continent or from a small local colony, though? Hell of a jammy way to see one, either way! :)