Some Work And Some Play

Made for a varied weekend.


Did I cover Friday before? Not much to say other than at least 2 Great Tits coming to the feeders and hanging off my [now rather twiggy] Hawthorn.

Hmm, I think I have already posted about them, but nm, eh?



Saturday saw me getting up far too early after a week on nights to go back to work. [Get it where you can and so on..]. I had just enough daylight left to scurry up to Bowling Green for my second AmWig attempt of the year, before getting on with the festive stuff. Again I didn't find the git until it was nearly dark, [the blighter was sneaky and had ~1100 Wigeon as cover, plus long grass and undulating landscape] but this time he couldn't hide in the wrong county!

Here's more of the phonescoped horror;

Obvious when you were looking right at him..

..He was very good at sneaking out of shot

Head-on that cream blaze meant there was no hiding.

[Of interest, note variation in Eurasian Wigeon blazes - 

these are not artefacts.]

With the tide down, most of the waders were elsewhere, though a Spotshank showed very well by the Clyst platform. Plenty of nice ducks to look at, with the Pintail definitely the prettiest.



Cut to Sunday, and another of those headaches threatened to take the day out. I abandoned any thoughts of heading Plimoth way and settled for a wander over to the Nose. Vague dreams of finding a Dusky or something in the bushes were thwarted by reality, and a fresh southerly wind. The sea gave up some nice birds, though. Both GND and BTD were fishing north of the Lead Stone, along with at least 42 Razorbills and 8+ Guilles. A lot of gulls around, too - including a dozen Common - I guess there must have been a shoal of something inshore. Also of interest was a marked passage of Kittiwakes, I counted 134 in 15 minutes! Only 3 Gannet, and those well out and passing.

Any hope for cetaceans was dashed by no less than 5 TOJs. [In such situations, I find myself increasingly having wistfully bad thoughts about such film classics as Jaws 3 and Two-headed Shark Attack....]

Before the noisy ones arrived, there was a nice Grey Seal knocking around Sandy Point.



Here's a pic to end with;

Looking down the First Slope to the Upper Meadow.

Left fork to the Rock Path, right to Look Out and the Step Path

And th-th-th-th-that's all, folks.