Mua-ha-ha-ha-haaa-aah-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa!!!!

But what is this? Another post?!???

Having some hollyday to use up ["By the end of March or lose it..."] and the li'l car needing attention [eek...] have seen me not at work so far this week. Yesterday was largely taken up with having large amounts of money slowly extracted [even less pleasant than it sounds]. I eventually got to the Harbour late afternoon in time to see 6 Purple Sands, 3 Turnstones, and a Rockit. There was sod all on the sea and all the gulls had been scared off from their pontoon by a swimming dog! 2 Mallard were swimming about the Outer Harbour. Hmm.


Today I determined to have some fun.
I toyed with heading south to look for early migrants, but then thought 'Naah, sod it' and went up on't Moor!

This proved to be a Good Idea, as I had a very nice time and didn't get rained on at all! I spent the morning stalking about Bellever and while the wind was cold, it was fairly light and the [admittedly infrequent] bursts of sun were warm. The ground was not at all frozen - not such a good thing as twas quite soggy - and it was very Spring-like, with birdsong filling the air. First stop was the Tor itself - home of one of the best 360° panoramas going [at least when the wind lets you stand up]. Eventually moving on I worked my way around all the sheltered slopes and clearings - the wind was moderate, but still there, after all. Lots of Mipits and Skylarks at last! Such a lovely change, with parachuting pipits all over the shop - many sitting on young conifers trying to be Tripits [most amusing]. A Mistle Thrush flew low overhead and gave me a passing rattle, unlike a later Song Thrush, which just kept going. Also at least two Green Woodpeckers, very vocal and very hard to see among all the greenery..

I toddled over to Madman's Laughter Tor [this is the proper name, by the way - for some reason they don't like putting it on maps...] and took a leisurely lunch, waiting to see what would fly past. Only one bird of note - a Redpoll. Not flying but also noteworthy was a male Crossbill - it was in lookout position a fair way off [that li'l scope is very handy] but as far as I could tell it was alone.

After gleefully watching a big shower that had been hitting Ryder's Hill hard miss to the east, I was looking even more happily at one that was snowing on Princetown missing west [nutty amusement was pretty much de rigour, considering my location]. Then the wind did some cackling of it's own and changed from SSW to WSW. Bugger...
Cue snowballs! Little balls of snow - about .5 to 1cm - then fell from the sky. It was great! :) [Said I didn't get rained on ;) ]. It was also pretty unrelenting, this 'shower' being more like a long line. The birds made themselves scarce and eventually I did too. There still being plenty of daylight left, I took the scenic route home but failed to run across any Bramblings or winter thrushes. Still, a good day and a very enjoyable walk.