An Interesting Day

This is a quick interim post, hopefully tomorrow [or maybe Sunday..] I'll flesh it out more, so my apologies.

In from work this morning, I had the intention of getting over to Bowling Green for the high tide - seems to be getting to be a nice routine for me. Today I decided that yes, it had been clear enough early in the night then cloudy enough later on that with the SE [or so] wind there might be some migrants at Hopes Nose. So first up I stopped off there, creditably soon after sunrise, too!

Of course, the down side with a brisk SSE [which this really was] is that it blasts up everywhere except the North Side, which [as I'm always saying] you can't get at... It was not as dead as I'd feared, with a fair bit of passage going on - highlight being 2 groups of Siskin [Patch Year Tick!], but Bullfinches also featured along with Chaffs, Greenfinches, and Mipits. No lurking Bluetails that I could find, alas.

I pulled up at Bowling Green at 9:00 on the dot [after the usual fun drive] and no sooner had I plonked down in the hide than a Glossy Ibis did the same out among the waders! RESULT! :D It was ringed, too - metal on the right and a Darvik-type* on the left [off-white or very faded yellow] with 'JM10' [[Probably; the 1 was a little funny-looking and the bird never gave us a full on view]]. It stuck around for 20 minutes or so then flew off high to the east, disappointing more than a few who'd been called about it. A juvenile Spoonbill was more accommodating, even waking up and feeding now and again! Plenty of other waders about, including a Ruff, 3 Spotshank [2 juvs from the hide and later an ad. and a juv from the platform], 3 Golden Plover [looking gorgeous], 22 Greenshank, 2 Green Sand, and 42 Avocet.

[[*Ie. a big ring with letters/numbers on it. If that's not what 'darvik' means, please feel free to correct me..]]

Currently we have relatives visiting, and as I was heading over to Dart's Farm - just in case the Ibis went there - the Folks called to arrange a meet up with me for a look about and some lunch. This led to several of Devon's Finest [who shall remain nameless in thanks for their forbearance] meeting Tilly and her, er.. 'enthusiastic' approach to the great outdoors. Though the family party arrived after the waders had moved out, together we saw the Spoonbill [it preened for us for all of 5 seconds!], the Ruff, Spotshank, and the [now a bit distant] Avocet, so that wasn't at all bad. The Blackwits off the Goatwalk were their usual confiding selves, which was great, and a tricksy phyllosc with a tit band kept us amused for a few minutes [[it was a Chiff, almost certainly, but a silent and very mobile one so still fun to try to get on long enough to be sure! :) ]].

After fighting off the beer-hungry jaspers a pub lunch in Topsham, we went our separate ways - they on to Mamhead and Labrador [They reported heard-only Crossbills and unfortunately dipped the Cirls], me home to crash* after 24 hours without sleep....

[[*And home without crashing, which was good. I got 3 hours before having to be up for a Big Family Dinner, {which was a lot of fun, and there was cake. Result.}. I apologise again if the usually high {{ ::Cough cough:: }} standards of this blog have been compromised by this woeful misalignment of my priorities.]]

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