I Had A Title For This Post...

And at some point I might even remember it again. Oh dear....


Working backwards, just because;

Two Swallows over the Inner Harbour were a lot better than the 47 Herring Gulls and a Moorhen on the pontoon - they were heading southeast, flying into the wind and using a more clipped style that made me wonder if they were Martins when I first saw them.. :)

Bugger all on the sea, but the 9 Purple Sands I could find along the Real Living Coast included one in near summer plumage - very nice indeed! More at sea off Meadfoot, where at least 12 Sarnies were fishing and further out a dark bird bobbed.. WTF?!? Dark birds on the sea are Shags or Cormorants, but not riding that high and looking that compact... A name came to mind at once, but it was a mad name, a fanciful name.. A Scoter? Nope, just not right and oh look, white bit. Far too uniformly dark to be a female Tufty.. It is, isn't it? A compact black bird which is in the habit of nodding off on the water and has a white bit on the face.. A COOT!!!!!!!

Mad? Fanciful? On my Patch, dear reader, I have now seen a total of three Coots. That is going back to the eighties. The eighties. They're a less than one a decade bird. The reason for this oddity is the utter lack of decent fresh water - there are a few ornamental ponds [at Torre Abbey and Cockington], which are basically concrete bowls. You get Moorhens, Mallards, gulls. That's it. The odd brief vagrant until it realises how shite a spot it's in. Coot on the sea? Odd. Coot on my Patch? AMAZING!

:D


Ahem.


Inland there were plenty of singing birds, but not a one of them a Chiffchaff. I've still not heard one doing what they do this year - what's with that? The sun was shining and out of the wind it's positively balmy, the trees are coming out and things are greening up at last. In the Garden, male and female Blackcap this week, not trying to kill each other. Now, here's the interesting bit - Brits returned or Germans hanging on? Answers on a postcard [or a shiny ring!]. Two at a time Goldfinches are also very regular visitors to the sunflower hearts.



And finally, I saw this this afternoon and suddenly broke into song [The Hero Of Canton, naturally]. I have to share it with you;

There's no place I can be..