Patch Tick!!

Another one!

Didn't even have to leave the house this time, either! Yesterday afternoon, about half six, the late sun warms some nice bushes-come-trees-come-bramble thicket out back. As I look out of my window, a movement catches my eye; Ooh, a Jersey Tiger! Then I pick up a brown bird.. Another Reed Warbler?!? Oh no, that's no Reed, that's a frickin' Cetti's!!!!! It found a nice spot, caught a couple of flies, and sat in the sun for an age - maybe 20 seconds - long enough for me to decide to go for my scope, at which point it vanished back into it's cover and didn't re-emerge. Many is the time you hear Cetti's without seeing them [even when they're at blow in your eardrums range] but it's not often you see one without hearing it. I assume it was a dispersing juvenile - I just hope it was able to move on before the cats found it...



After that, and with the mistyfog arriving overnight, I was down at the Nose this morning. I gave it a mighty battering and got one band of passerines for my pains. They were very mobile and seemed to be  one of the local tit bands [LTTs and Blues] with a bunch of warblers following them about; at least 5 Chiffs, 2 Whitethroats, a Blackcap, and a Garden Warbler [the latter actually posed in the open for nearly 3 seconds, the porn star! ]. They could be local juvs, of course, rather than grounded migrants.


More productive was the sea, with a quick scan turning into a 5 minute timed count!

Balearic  2
Manxie  16
Fulmar  2
Gannet  12
Skua sp. [probably Arctic]  1
Kittiwake  124!

And that was just what was in binocular range. The Kitts were a pulse, not sustained passage, but the birds are still out there...


There was also a Clouded Yellow which vanished when the sun went in and didn't reappear, and a lovely Painted Lady, which landed in front of me as I toiled up the First Slope and posed;

Later on I got to the Harbour, where there were plenty of juvie Herrings, but nothing sexier.