Something About The Weekend..?

Oh yeah, gotta post on the blog!


Saturday morning saw me at - surprise surprise - the Nose again. Also shockingly, there was bugger all in the way of migrants about. I found ONE Chiffchaff. A couple of Gannets were well out at sea and 3 Ravens put on a bit of a show. Oh well and all that, eh?


I decided to wander over to Yarner, and before I'd even got to my li'l car, it started raining! It rained all the way over, and looked set to keep at it as I resolutely set off up towards the Old Hide [now that there's a New Hide by the Pond, the old Hide - the Bill Oddie one! - needs a distinguishing name]. Then, fickle as the weather is, it decided to stop raining. Indeed, eventually the sun almost came out and it got very warm.

[[I should explain that Yarner has a reputation among the family as a rain magnet. This mainly stems from various school trips when Sisters and I were very young..]]

Nothing like a little downpour to keep the crowds at bay; for a weekend it was nicely quiet [my wandering straight off the beaten track helped, too]. 5 flavours of tit and 4 of 'tree birds' were on display, with a nice Grey Wag at the Pond and Siskin at the Old Hide. But I must admit that birds weren't my primary reason for visiting; I spent a lot of time wandering the ways, just soaking in the quiet. These are interesting times I live in right now, and a little solace was most welcome.

Not that birds weren't on the agenda, far from it. I took a long lunch at a nice [and sheltered] vantage point where I waited to see what would fly over. With the conditions, it was what I would hear fly over, but there was a fair bit of that. Mostly finches; with 5 groups* of Chaffinch, 2 of Bullfinch, and single groups of Siskin, Skylark, Mipit, and alba Wagtails. Not epic, but it being inland, middle of the day in not super conditions, I'll consider it not bad.

Later on I pushed up onto the fields and open ground above the woods, looking for thrushes. Black and white ones ideally [though a just White one would do! ;) ]. I didn't find any Ouzels, just a couple of Mistles and my first Redwing of the Autumn.


Finally, I circled around the top to Trendlebeare to try for more [and perhaps actual] vismigs. No joy, with only low level local [and very vocal] Mipits about.



It was still a very worthwhile visit, giving me a little calm amongst the madness [which I will spare you; Real Life has no place here, after all! ;) ]



On to Sunday, which saw a family trip down to Cornwall to see Sister, BIL, and the Nephew of Doom. Mostly we spent the time catching up and cooing over the increasingly less little one, but eventually we took pity of the Hounds of Hell and went out for a walk. As seems to be traditional, it rained, but we had a nice wander anyway. At least until it decided to really rain.. Not that the dogs minded; "There's a ball and somewhere to chuck it, come on!!" I must admit to not minding being out either; I even managed to almost get a Firecrest - unfortunately it stayed up high in it's tree [the Goldcrests it was with came lower, of course] and called derisively while only showing me its arse...



To the here and now, with work getting in the way of the interesting weather as per usual [at least I have work, I suppose - knock on wood]. Great Grey Shrike would look very nice on my Patch List**, now wouldn't it...


Oh, stop laughing.




[[*Very hard to count them when you can't see them! 'More than one by call frequency' is a group, so could be 2, could be 52. These all sounded like smaller parties, though.]]
[[**Nice bit of habbo at the Nose, plenty of food for it - hey, I can dream!]]