Weekend Patchwork Post. Pt.1 Here, Not There

Shamelessly trying to hoover up yearticks instead of being productive, I was here and there last weekend.

Yet another reported Black Redstart had the inevitable consequences, a trip or two to the Moor both got more interesting as the days ended, and I went somewhere I'd walked past once, many years ago!

 

 

 

Let us begin on Patch with this and that;

 

 

It was Three For Three on Saturday, as the Teacher's Blackstart proved completely invisible to me, and I got rained on. Deja-frickin'-vu. A noisy Firecrest in the usual place was at least some consolation.

 

But vengeance is a dish best served with persistence, so I was back brightish the next morning, and while a long look again gave nowt but a nice Rockit, I tried again after finding nothing else on site and an arsonist on the beach may well have helped push into view this little bundle of joy*;

 

Insert dodgy tail joke here

Female Blackstart

Note absence of any hint of black about the face; which would indicate an immature male.

Having added Grey Wagtail to my Actually In The Garden list, Sunday morning saw me almost run it/one over in the car park! Definitely hanging around, then :)

Scenery

Add time

Zoom in

Grey Seals. They're suddenly back again.

The local sea's been pretty quiet, as others have noted, most likely due to inclement weather [for a given definition of 'inclement'!]. Storms = divers. This is known.

I happened to be passing Blackball on Monday afternoon as dusk grew, so gave the roost a look. 42 GC Grebes [four rafts coalescing to two] and a RTD were visible, nothing particularly close, with the wind NW gusting hard W [?!?]. So not exactly ideal for numbers or observation, really. Gulls didn't start dropping in close until it was getting properly dusky and I didn't have time to linger, so no counts of them.

It has been largely 'looking but not finding', with the Teacher doing the scoring at the Nose ['it's just luck' he mutters...] - he had 2 Firecrests in view the same day he found the Blackstart [which incidentally would be his 4th of the winter, dearie me] - but that's birding..

Elsewhere, a different story, as will be told.

Be Seeing You...

[[* Yes, that's a very long sentence. No, I don't care. ]]