The Joys of overtime and my pesky head threatened to turn last weekend into one of very little birding.
Finally getting that moff post into shape threatened...
Then an 'Is it there or isn't it?' Collared Pratincole turned into an 'It Is!' and Mad Twitchin™ ensued...
:)
I picked up The Teacher [without any No. of Sons this time] and we zipped our way up up up to the wonderfully-named Horsey Island.
Where we found several of the Usual Suspects cooing over this;
Grasshopper!
While at the time it looked [via phone ID] like a Lesser Marsh Grasshopper, I think - having consulted the book - that it's probably an immature Meadow Grasshopper. The keel [pale line behind the eye] has a curve and a dark wedge next to it, and it's out of range of both Marsh spp.
Oh yeah, some people were also looking at this;
Collared Pratincole
Required ID features* in this shot!
::Faints::
[[Yup, who needs thousands of quids worth of camera when a pocket job will do the business? ;) ]]
On the deck
Careful timing by half of The Murphys showed it spent 40 minutes sat on the weed, then 20 minutes flying around over Sherpa Marsh and the sewage works [way off thattaway ::points left::] devouring anything that flew [in traditional Great Winged Terror form] before returning to its place of repose for another 40 mins of sitting with the odd bit of wandering around [it scuttled most wonderfully].
At one point it noticed the hordes of Sandflies buzzing around and started snapping at them like it was a LBD or something, accompanied by much head-bobbing to get the range.. Wonderful!
After missing out on the last Devon one [and having a Big Day Out as a result - funny how things work out] it was much-savoured Revenge to get one here. :D
More happened, but that's going to wait for another post [oh yes!] as I wasn't kidding about having bobbins all else to post about.
Though I will get to some moffs, honest! [I just haven't had any good ones yet...]
Anyways, I shall
Be Seeing You...
[[* Contrast between light brown upperparts and black primaries rules out Black-winged and clear white trailing edge to secondaries rules out Oriental, in case you were wondering. ]]
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