The Unseen Warblers Post

Not actually an entirely accurate title, but since when did that matter?


Well, today I did not see a Hume's Warbler. This is not a new experience for me, I'm quite good at it. This time it was really easy as I didn't even go for it. This being mainly due to being covered in sealant for most of the afternoon. I won't go into details, you might hurt yourselves laughing at me...


If it's pinned down tomorrow, I will make an effort to dip properly* - forgoing valuable pre-work sleep and everything - but today I just didn't have the time. I did just have time to wander about the more warbler-y bits of the Patch, including what passes for a sewage works around here [more a pumping station - the 'sewage works' is more properly known as The Channel...], where I found a few Blackcaps. Mostly saying rude things about my Mum** while hiding in bushes, as many warblers do.



My prime target continues to elude me, though. This is the NAG. As in 'not a Goldcrest' [my first thought on seeing it] and also as it remains a nagging irritation. It is almost certainly a YBW, but just possibly a HLW - I have been able to rule out PLW. Its mostly hanging around Wellswood [so a posh bird] and its irritating because I've only seen it in the distance. Nope, not one call! It's with a posse of Goldcrests and LTTs, with a few BTs and CTs thrown in. Seems simple enough? Well, not when you factor in the vast and dense plethora of utterly inaccessible gardens in the area. Viewed from some range - like across the valley - the band can be picked through when they go up high, but on the ground you have to catch them as they cross a road; which is both infrequent and brief, and so far beyond my fortune.


More easily observed has been the group of 4 1w Mistle Thrushes which have also been knocking about, munching berries and posing in treetops. Also visibly around are small groups of Redwing, a couple of decent sized bands of Greenfinches and Chaffinches, and today a flock of ~300 Woodpigs.



Ah, I'm a little out of order.. Ok, this weekend I've been vexed by the weather forecasters lying through their incompetent teeth and then doing important things that needed to be done. And having coffee and flapjacks [made by me! Shock!***] with Sister The Younger. Though that was Important and needed to be done as well.

Anyway, I've bashed the Patch a bit but done little else bar look out the window.. Oh, and look at the stars and count at least 3 calling male Tawny Owls just now.  :)





[[*See my past woes in Dorset for How To Dip The HLW Everyone Else Sees. I even managed to hear the bugger but not see even a UTV...]]
[[**Most of what birds say to each other is basically expletives, after all. Especially Wrens and Robins.]]
[[***She didn't die. Or go green and pass out. I count that as a win.]]