In Between The Showers

In this last week I have been mostly at the grindstone, but the odd moment here and there has provided opportunity to do more than keep my ears open for the gull alarm.

The Patch or Oz??

A Saturday Patch bashing in hope of stuff was not exactly glorious on shore, the day being saved by what a fairly quick look at passing trade offshore gave;
Four Brent Geese! An overhead [!] female Eider [lovely white underwings]! And an offshore feeding  frenzy with at least one [possibly as many as three] Arctic Skua. This being [a bit embarrassingly] my first skua[s] of the year... Oh dear. My camera threw one of its hissyfits and I got nothing usable at all, despite good visibility. Drat. Again.

It would lock on this Raven, though

Here's a Goldfinch

Lesser Periwinkle

Rough Chervil

Greater Stitchwort

Sunday saw me eventually give up and go off to the Exe after Green Sands again.

Yes, again.

Back pool at Matford

What's that out there right at the back??

Green Sandpipers

At frickin' last.

Right, where to now? Well, there may have been showy Garganey at Exminster and a GWE had been knocking about. Despite it being a sunny Sunday [though only on the Exe - mist and cloud on Patch] it was worth a try.

Exminster

Well, no joy on the rare[ish] stuff, despite lots of nonsense getting angles against the light and checking dead ground [well, water]. So, here are some ducks that did show;

Arty Gadwall

And from the sunny side

Shoveler

With Teal, by far the most numerous duck

Notable absence of hirundines - only one Sand Martin and that at Matford - but warm enough to make me look for Yellow Wags [cattle are on station]!

Let's look close to home now

Getting as regular as Blue and Coal

Woodpig splats

I have UV stickers up, I don't keep the glass spotless [you may have noticed], I'm careful about fly-throughs, and still the things keep splatting into my windows! On the plus side, take-off impacts are low-speed enough to avoid harm to the birds, but well, I'm going to have opaque windows if they keep this up...


Ok, that's it.

Be Seeing You...