Once upon a time, I was able to freely upload images to my blog. Then google [who bought blogger] decided that they wanted to make more money from me. Not being content with using this blog to train AIs [theirs and anyone wo'll pay them], using the metadata of it and all who look at it for everything they can get paid for [it's a lot], profiting from the IP, and I'm sure a whole lot of other things too. They wanted to put permanent software on my system; to monitor everything I do online [and likely also off], and I am not going to allow that. I erase cookies as fast as they are uploaded as a matter of principle; maybe I could erase these, but maybe not. It is that I don't trust them. It is that I know they are evil. [Definition; putting your wellbeing above and to the exclusion of others']
They do not seem to be backing down over this - as they have in the past - so I am going to put this, the partially-written post where it hit, up.
If you go to bluesky [I'm Backward Birder], you will see a pair of butterflies [er, when I find the images]
I am going to keep blogging, but it's write-only from now on. Here you'll get more talking, and numbers from seawatching, and boring things like that. Images on Bluesky [as they are still free to view, unlike twitter], though not as many as you'd have had on here.
Blame the bastards.
Ok, to get on with it:
Not a great deal done over that weekend, oh so many many months ago, but I got to the Nose for a couple of seawatches, in perhaps not ideal conditions, but you take what work and weather allow.
In a shameless attack of clickbaiting, I am starting with a photo which I took after my second watch [and might tell you a thing or two about how this is going to go..] but I'm quite happy with it as a) the subject was a right git to get a shot of and b) it's the first one of the year I've seen.
Behold,
Small Skipper.
I didn't see a single one of these at the Nose last year, so it's good to know they at least haven't been wiped out. Unlike Whitethroats [thank you tcct, thank you so much for that].
And as a nice comparison, a Large Skipper was nearby,
THIS IS WHERE A PHOTO SHOULD GO, A PHOTO OF A LARGE SKIPPER IN SAME POSE AS THAT SMALL SKIPPER.
Getting back to it, two not enormously long seawatches in not exactly ideal conditions, but not awful, and it is THAT time of year, after all.
A 'few' pictures..
Friday.
Rain, yes.
Wind, not so much.
I got rather soggy. I almost got a good shear, but it got into the gunge just in time.
Best seabirds in pixels;
Guillemots and Kittiwakes in the
Ore Stone channel
Fulmar [R], Gannet [L], and
3 Common Scoter photobombing!
I did get 7 Balearics and 12 Manxies, but very little else aside from a wader sp. which stayed head-on then vanished. Bugger.
But you keep trying [once you've dried out, anyway]
Sunday seemed to promise more wind and lots of nice chunky showers in a little sunshine...
Ho ho frickin' ho.
😧
Yes, I went over despite all the sunshine.
Give it an hour, maybe two if there's birds.
Ten minutes in, I'm tracking a diver through that glare there, and well right of the Ore Stone I can finally see that it's a GND in full s/pl, very distant but something!
Then, the weather does this,
Exmouth getting
what-for
Me getting what-for!
Rain.
Oh, and a Grey Seal,
possibly wondering where the
surface is...?
I had the big bumbleshoot with me. This was a VERY GOOD THING.
And here we end. What else I was planning to say, I can't remember.
What I will say now is very simple;
GOOGLE ARE EVIL.
USE A DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINE
Try DuckDuckGo. Is Yahoo still a thing? Or Bing?
Just not those greedy bastards.
THAT'S IT.
Be Seeing You...
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