The Joy of Rain

Or not, as the case may be...

Certainly could do with some proper squally bits to maybe get some birds that aren't Razormots inshore? Rain's a funny thing, has this habit of not showing up when you want it, but when you'd quite like it to hold off, coming in and pissing all over you.

Now, the textbook says [[or would say, if there was one]] that sustained strong winds aren't actually that good for seawatching, as stuff is too busy being blown around to pass. However, there is another rule to be remembered; the 'What The Frell Else Is There To Do??' Rule. There's also the 'You Never Know What's Going By' Rule and the 'Really Good Things Frequently Ignore the Rules' Rule to think of. So I gave it 4 hours at Berry Head today, following the 2 1/2 hour [yes, the same 2 1/2 hours! ;) ] watch I tried yesterday at the Nose.

1305 auks in 2.5 hours versus 2017 in 4 hours [with 1033 in the first hour]. 296 Gannets vs 102. 209 Kittiwakes vs 127. Yeah, 102 Gannets in 4 frickin' hours. I've had much worse in the past [oh, so much worse] and I did get some lovely views of them battering the baitfish that have been so common off this part of the coast this winter so I'm not complaining [much]. 8 Common Scoter went past the Nose, but only a single male passed the Head today. There was also a Red-throated Diver. Yesterday a shearwater sp. - probably Manx - got my hopes up, but just as I lost it behind yet another tanker before it could be nailed, so a flood of fancy birds failed to materialise. Single graellsii LBBs on each day [adult and 3w], 58 GC Grebes on the sea in Hope Cove and 3 female Eider off the blockhouse provided some distraction and the Harbour Porps present on both days were worth the ticket price by themselves. The Berry Head pod were on particularly fine form today, showing right in close for the entire watch and matched only by the aerobatics [if not vocal performance] of the local Fulmars.

On Thursday I went for a proper wander up on't Moor, such as I haven't done for far too long. There's nothing like low cloud, wind, and the threat of cold sideways rain to get some privacy up there :D I went south from Princetown to Drizzlecombe - which I for once had to myself :D - and while the best bird I saw was a dark Buzzard [thoroughly enjoying being able to fly around without being pestered by corvids] it was pretty fun [well, apart from managing to get my hat blown into a puddle, but these things happen*] [[*Sounds very laid-back, that. Not how I felt then, oh the air went navy....]]. Drizzlecombe's an interesting place; the ancestors were very busy there and have left assorted cists, cairns, and three stone rows. Each row has an impressive terminal stone, one of which is the tallest in the south west. I can't remember offhand if it's 13 or 15 feet high, but it's well worth a look if you're ever wandering the upper Plym.

Wednesday was Patch-oriented, with the only interesting [if you like grebes] news being 18 GC Grebes off Blackball in the morning [actively fishing] and 80 there late afternoon [mostly sitting around]. Oh, there was a RT Diver in the morning, too.

Finally, I have a Lifer to report! Not a bird, but a ship. The Navy has [for now, at least] several minesweepers, but I'd never before yesterday seen one. She came south, outside the Ore Stone but inside the tankers - too much gunk in the air to make out her name, unfortunately. Today HMS Bulwark steamed into the Bay, shifted position a couple of times, then headed off up the coast towards a couple of auxiliaries that were lurking in the murk off Labrador. Oh, and three beam trawlers came into Brixham, one considerately washing her nets. They didn't bring any nice followers, even though one was the telly star 'Angel Emiel' herself! It's all go, I tell you.

Another Wild Goose Chase

A report of a 'probable Black Brant' off Preston on a Certain Devon Birding Site had me wandering down that way today. Not a Brent of any flavour to be found anywhere from the Harbour to the Pier, of course, but one has to try..

There was a very nice Red-necked Grebe off Hollicombe, at least 3 Black-necked Grebes, a couple of GC, the male Common Scoter, and the female Long-tailed Duck. Ah, the L-T Duck.... She'd evidently taken a whack to the noggin and come to thinking she was a porn star. So ridiculously close in off Preston Sands, and so unbothered by passing dog walkers that I was able to go right out to the water's edge [this being low tide] and get crippling views as she dived, sat, preened and flapped her wings at me, the hussy. ;) Close enough to fully ID without optics. Mad, mad I tell you... Two of the BN Grebes got in on the action and started swimming by in front of her 'Hey, look at us!'. All this in balmy sunshine.

Did I mention the Med Gull? Not last week's stunning adult, but a 3w [aged as such by tiniest traces of dark subterminally on primaries combined with otherwise adult features {esp. bill}]. This one was so white it almost looked like an Iceland Gull, I've never seen a w/pl Med with so little black on the head before; really pretty bird. Also at Preston, it came in from the outer rocks as the tide started to rise [I'd spent a while cooing over the Long-tail] and sat nicely with the BHGs. The adult intermedius LBB was at Torre Abbey on the way down [mantle a shade off GBB and easy to mistake for a skinny one - it's a big bird] and 24 Turnstones enlivened the trip up [much easier to count with less exposed rock to scan]. Again no sign of a Blackstart, though. This afternoon there were 168 GC Grebes off Blackball, plus 4 Razorbill, in pretty good conditions for viewing.

Yesterday I gave the Patch a good bash, noting 2-300 Guillemots around and on the Ore Stone [need the Bigs Scope to count them properly] and finally getting something on the Firecrest I've been playing les buggeres risibles with since last year! :D If you're feeling very lucky, or just very masochistic, you start at the small grove of pines just down the road from the gate to Hope's Nose. If it's not calling around there, follow the coast path loop to Thatcher Point and back to the road. If you've still not connected it's either on the cliffside where you can't get at it, or in the garden of someone with LOTS of money - where you can't get at it. Fun for all the family, I tell you. [[Or, you could just go to Broadsands, or Beer Cemetery, or Thurlestone, or...]]. Ahem. Silliness aside, I've had half a dozen or so 'Was that a Firecrest?' moments there since the cold snap, but at last enough [nice clear calls and a brief glimpse] to Patch yeartick the little git. Why is it only the ones on my Patch that are so naughty? Other Firecrests in Devon have been very nice, and two at Loe Pool a couple of years back were positively tarty...

{I would have been blogging this last night, btw, but a surprise piece of Civic Duty popped up and afterwards I was far too drained. [[Did you know every Council ward has a Community Partnership? Do you know what they do / can do? I didn't until very recently. I won't bore you with details, suffice to say they're worth looking at.]]}

I had been intending to go on about seawatching, in an attempt to get this blog back to it's 'a little less reporting and a bit more wibbling' original intent. So that's two more good intentions on the scrapheap. There is still time, of course, and there's always tomorrow [[and tomorrow and tomorrow and..]] [[Ahem.]]. One final thing - passing the Harbour this morning there were exactly 7 Herring Gulls. Weather and tide... Plenty around the outfalls at Torre Abbey and Livermead, plus Hollicombe, Preston, Corbyn's etc. Closest things to an interesting one were a 4w(?) Herring with almost entirely black bill, 'Slaty-backed' head streaking and only a few teeny brown marks on the tail away from full adult plumage [[Weird]] and a 2w Herring with what looked like GBB genes... a lanky scary headed gull!

PYL: 87

Oh no...

You know, there are times when you experience such acute embarrassment that you just want to vanish into a handily adjacent parallel dimension. One such event happened to me today, but more of that later.

Yesterday, when not staring out the window wondering how they hell they all knew which weekend it was, I took a stroll around a rather, er, cold Mamhead with the folks and Tilda Swindog. If it hadn't been for a ridiculously cool Treeeecreeeper near the Obelix there wouldn't have been much of a bird report at all [not entirely surprising]. Treeeecreeeeper was a Star, though, "Mad barking dogs? What mad barking dogs?" etc... It wasn't an entirely solo effort, though as we did have a couple of very nice sightings before the 'creeper; Roe Deer. Oh, but Tilly was over the moon. She really likes deer. When two does ran across the track behind us, only a very well-placed and snaggy tree stump saved my Mum and I from getting high-speed extendo-lead to the backs of our legs [That lead goes through vegetation like a strimmer..]. Then a buck was just stood behind a tree, cool as you like, about 50' from us. My Dad's getting very good at dog-wrangling..

Today a proper Day Out on't Moor! Well, a proper day out around Fernworthy anyway! Not as much ice as last year [at one point there was a glacier on the road, I kid ye not; park 2km short and walk...], though the ground was nicely frozen. Just a little ice in the shadow of the dam, though lots of nice natural ice sculptures around. A day of blue skies and warm sun, with a light but toothy wind; glorious! As well as the traditional circuit of the reservoir we also took a wander through the trees; much quieter :) There are some wonderful trees at Fernworthy; its a big wood, so it really deserves to have them - proper mature conifers of a lot more than one species, thankyou very much - look along the valleys for the best ones. There's also some nice archaeology there, if you're interested [[And on the subject, next Sunday afternoon on C4 is apparently when Time Team is showing their dig at Tottiford - yes that's why it was drained last year - should be interesting! ]]. Fernworthy rocks. Especially in winter.

We went by most of my favourite bits and were rewarded handsomely with crippling views of Crossbills! Special thanks to the 2 adult males, female and two fresh juveniles which came halfway down a conifer to pose for us on the short bare stubby branches. They just sat there, looking around now and then.. I couldn't believe my eyes. Close enough to see all the details of bill morphology with bins... The other Fernworthy specials were less obliging, with a single flyover Redpoll [in the company of a single Siskin, which was a nice comparison] and Siskins mostly staying up high or flying over [and not singing]. Even the Goldcrests were feeling shy. I'm not bothered; those Crossbills [at least 20 in small groups] more than made up for it. We also met two more Roe Deer, but Tilly was staring the other way and missed them! Poor thing, about 10 seconds after they vanished she must have caught their scent as her head snapped 'round and she was frantically looking in a "What did I miss?!?!??" way..

Having finished the loop early, we kept going past the car park and had coffee in the hide, hoping maybe a nice Goosander might fly in. No such luck. 5 Herrings, 6 BHG, singles of Tufty, Coot, Grey Heron and Cormorant, plus 5 Teal lurking in the far side tussocks were all that was on offer. The sound of someone approaching sent Atilly into Hun mode [she thinks everywhere she gets fed is home, the mad thing], so I went out to apologise, only to discover it was [Famous Devon Birder]. Oh the shame...

Mostly it was a very nice day indeed.

Dogged Persistence

Or perhaps that should be blind stubbornness had me making another attempt to Find That Gull today, with again no joy. At one point a neat 100 Herring Gulls on the pontoon was nice [41 adult to 59 immature], as was a 1w LBB looking small dark and nervous among the throng. Moving to Princess Pier, I had a promising start with a Red-throated Diver flying into the Bay from the north and heading towards Broadsands, but though the view of big waves lit by beams of sunlight was very spectacular, there wasn't much doing bird-wise. Only 8 GC Grebes on the impressively rolling swell [white water could be seen breaking a good ten feet above the roof of the blockhouse at Berry Head, so nobody fishing there today..] and a marked reduction in non-Herring Gulls, with only 30 or so BHGs and no Med or Commons. Most of the Black 'eads were standing around gloomily on Torre Abbey [water] Meadow, accompanied by some equally brassed-off looking Herrings and no less than 30 Jackdaw. Torre Abbey is a good spot for Jackdaw, but even for there that's a good number.

I had a more thorough look for Blackstart around Rock Walk [or whatever it is the council calls it now] and failed, though I did discover there were actually 2 male Blackcaps, which was interesting [and may explain the absence of Blackstarts. {Well, that or my incompetence..}] and makes a full 10 wintering on my Patch. Also of note was the 1w Razorbill fishing in the inner Harbour - dodging the Geebs and Herrings to do so! There are a fair few small fish hanging around in there, but having all those hungry eyes watching you, just ready to attack means that must have been one hungry or hardcore auk.

Good Snow

It stayed up in the air, where it can't cause trouble...

Today I went back to have a look for That Gull. Unsurprisingly, despite hours of searching I couldn't find the little git. 'Gull sp.' it is, then. ::Mutter mutter::

I did see lots of gulls, some of which were very nice indeed! Well, two were lovely and one was probably very good too, though as for the rest.. Oh dear, shall I just get on with it? Having mentioned the probable Y-l with the dark alula, there were promptly three, yes three Herrings on the pontoon showing the same thing. ::Mutters Ancient Devonian Swear-words:: The proper one was there too, and later popped up at Torre Abbey, messing around in the surf as the tide dropped and looking better and better. :) There was no sign of crazy-legs crane gull or the big dark one, either.

Some idea of the gull cycling that goes on on that little pontoon; first look had 37 Herrings and a Geeb, plus Y-l. I moved around to the next side and there were 51 gulls. After my next move 67. After I had a look from Haldon Pier and came back there were 70 gulls including now 2 Geebs and the ratio of adult to immature Herrings had gone from 40:60 to 70:30 The highest count of Herrings in the Harbour as a whole I got was 120, when something put them all up; how much throughput there is from surrounding areas I can't begin to guess, but I doubt it's zero. GBB minimum count was 11, btw - there's usually a few around, but rarely the numbers you get at Brixham or near their colonies.

Getting back to an account of sorts.. It was overcast, cold, trying to snow now and again, and the wind was very lazy. Just nice for standing around staring at gulls and stuff on the sea. I did try to vary it with looking for the Blackstart that often winters around Rock Walk, but only found a Blackcap! Other gulls of interest were about 200 BHGs; split between sitting in a bunch by Princess Pier, sitting on the rocks at Corbyn's [when the tide had dropped] and messing about at Livermead. The group by the Pier was easily the best as they had with them a superb adult Med Gull! :D Very nearly in full s/pl, it really put the brown 'eads to shame. Further out, a clump of 32 Common Gulls were nice to see, and briefly on Torre Abbey beach late on was a cracking adult LBB showing characteristics of intermedius. I say briefly as a frickin' dog walker detoured to be sure to flush it and the other gulls well out into the Bay... [[Yup, yet more Ancient Devonian Swear-words were uttered...]] I had been hoping for a Little Gull frolicking above the surf, but only got 9 surfers and 3 punt-surfers instead.. Oh well, it was more a hope than an expectation.

More enjoyment came after counting the Commons from the lee of the ticket booth; a lone Mallard had been swimming up and down beside Princess Pier and Gardens and I was looking down at it when suddenly up popped a frickin' Black-necked Grebe - right next to the Pier and maybe 20' from my astonished eyes! It proceeded to fish it's way along the Pier side, at one point catching a small flatfish, with me only stopping watching when I saw what else was close by.. Great Northern. [[Could this be what flew into the Bay yesterday?]] After legging it along Princess Pier to get closer, I plonked down on one of the nice benches, feet up on the rail drinking it in as it preened and gradually drifted further out. The diver was an immature [2nd or 3rd winter], holding up one of those very pale bills that annoy the Irish.. ;) [[To be honest, I don't pay super levels of attention to GND bills - if they're nice and daggery that'll usually do - and without [{In}Famous Irish Birder]'s recent comments and blog entries I'd have probably let it slide altogether as natural variation..]] [[Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?]]

Also on the sea were 17 GC Grebe and 2 Slavonian [these sat quite close in, with a single GC], plus 2 adult Razorbill on the sea and 2 1w preening inside the outer Harbour, as well as the usual plethora of Shags and Cormorants. Three Turnstone and three Rockit were around the Harbour [the former circling an angler, hoping for bait] and 4 Oyks around Corbyn's Head. The rugby pitch had 61 Redwing and a Mistle Thrush, with the newly-scrubbed 'ponds' having 37 assorted Mallard and a handful of Moorhen.

Swinging past the Downs, I was a little surprised to see 35 GC Grebe riding the big swell off Blackball - normally with weather coming onshore there's nowt there.

PYL: 85

Resuming Regular Service

By talking a load of stuff and nonsense, blathering on about rubbish and generally doing my utmost to make you fall asleep on your keyboards...

Yes, it's gull time!

;D

Oh, but I had some fun with them today and no mistake. A little scene-setting / background, perhaps? Torquay Harbour is no Backwater; there's not a dense mass of hundreds of large and lumpy larids to sort through at scope range with a hidden countdown to the next flush keeping you under pressure.. The pontoon that's been set up for them [and they are the only things that use it] may have as few as a half dozen gulls, or at most couple of score, which isn't much at all, really. What it does have is a surprising turnover and the ability to be viewed from 3 sides [useful as they always try to hide or point at you and there's usually glare too]. Mostly you get a motley assortment of Herrings and a Geeb or two [plus Shags, Moorhens, Pied Wags and the odd Cormorant for company]. LBBs pop in now and again, as does the odd brave BHG. Yellow-leg is possible, but I've never seen a Common or Med there.[[::Engage Ahab Mode:: One day I will find a Caspian.]]

If you want lots of gulls, wander over to Torre Abbey Sands, where either on the sea wall at high tide or on the rocks at low tide you'll find three figures fairly reliably. Nip over Corbyn's Head and at Livermead you have a shot at Med Gull [plus possibly Little Gull if it's rough, though you can get very wet if the tide's right up...]. Keep going and the rocks at Hollicombe have even more, though not so easy to see close up, keep going again and you'll be in Paignton and serve you right. ;) The Harbour gulls have the advantage of being somewhere you can interrogate them thoroughly, without range, angle and dog walkers spoiling the fun.

The vast and infinite variety of manky 1w Herring Gulls [and 2w too, for that matter] never ceases to amaze, and it's very easy to dismiss everything you see as such. Also pretty accurate, of course. :) There's always at least one that catches the eye and demands a closer look, even if it's just to go "Oh yes, what nice tertials you have, but just look at the rest of you.." Today there were no less than 4 interesting 1w gulls to wander back and forth around the Harbour for. One was one of those big dark argentatus-type birds that caused some interest online a little while back - probably the same bird has been present on and off since last year. Another was the YL candidate with the dark alula [they stick out], still looking good but not perfect.

Now we get to the fun ones; first up was the stiltiest gull I ever have seen! [[Yes, even more than the Infamous Gull Sp. of 2010...]] My word what long legs it had, and a nice Caspian structure generally, what a pity the plumage didn't live up to that promise... It had nice tertials and was pale enough underneath [just about] but oh the coverts, argh the neck, not a single grey replacement above and not a white enough head by any stretch. Definitely some gene-flow at work, but no more than a funny Herring.

Finally, we have one of the rarer occurrences, an actual Whisky Tango.* A dinky thing with the shape of an Iceland Gull; very white head with black bill, a boa of blotchy grey, very pale beneath, very brown coverts [Caspian coverts] with a few replacements of all-grey feathers among lesser and median [these a darker grey than the Herrings - Yellow-leg grey it looked like, maybe even a tad darker, but not as far as LBB], 'black and white' mantle and scaps [near white feathers with dark markings], dark deltas on u/t coverts, Yellow-leg type tail band and uppertail, surprisingly pale underwing with undersides of primaries 'paler than they should be', primaries dark with a pale fringe and legs pink. Neither folded primary nor leg colour stood out from the surrounding Herrings, but everything else did!

[[*From Whisky Tango Foxtrot {India Tango}, to give it the full term. Ie: "What the fuck is that!??!??"]]

The little sod made me seriously consider running home and bringing the Big Scope down, but of course that would have been futile, as it duly flew off. I went after it but it'd headed out into the Bay, so I had a look at said sea, saw 3 GC Grebes and 2 Razorbills, plus a large diver sp. flying in towards Broadsands from the north. Then a Buzzard made the mistake of flying over the Harbour; everything went up to have a go [Buzzards usually make that mistake only once - this was a 1w]. The Buzzard exited stage left, pursued by bear ;) I went back to the pontoon and the Mystery Gull (TM) was back, still in the middle and next to a different gull [[Did I mention it was hiding behind the big dark bugger before, so I had to go around then wait for it to move? No? I got a good look in the end...]]. It only stayed a couple of minutes before once more flying off and I got nothing new on it.

To change the subject a little, I had a look off Blackball late afternoon and despite the howling Nor'easterly I managed to pick out a single GC Grebe on the sea. I'm a little chuffed with that. Even better was the group of 9 [yes 9] Fulmar 7 of which were sat together on the sea and two more flying around over them. Just goes to show that you never can tell what you'll see when you look at the sea.

Right then, I've already been through the Big White Book of Gull-induced Braindeath, but there's always a second try..

Orange Mud and Snowy Queries.

I'll skip the 'Oh dear I left it a while again' apology and get on with it, shall I? Much of the weekend was spent hunched over the 'puter, as shall be told later. When not staring at a screen and cursing search engine designers and website updaters, I went on a couple of east side trips with the folks. Yarner was lovely again, with more Treeecreeeper goodness and another meeting with what might have been the same group of Siskin and Redpoll [though with more Siskin this time] near the mine. The Three Reservoirs had some nice birds too, and were for once not that busy [I guess we caught them at a good time on a good day - the car park was pretty full when we arrived]. 7 redhead Goosander and a dozen Cormorant [all carbo] were on Kennick; Trenchford and the starting-to-refill Tottiford were quiet. The woods held some nice tit and 'crest bands, but star birds were the 8 very showy Crossbills near Kennick :D They were feeding in a couple of larches [there are some left, it seems..] and were only the third good look my parents have ever had [not counting flyovers and red and green blobs in distant conifer tops]. An even split of males and females, they were joined for a couple of minutes by of all things a female GSW - which landed next to them and started banging away at the larch cones herself! I've never seen a woodpecker go at cones before, though as they'll visit seed feeders, I suppose there's no reason they wouldn't.

Yesterday I bashed the Patch and finally managed to be behind the Palace when the LTT band was moving through. It still took a bit of work, [dodging speeding cars, mostly] but I was eventually rewarded with a Nuthatch :) Just to ice the cake, a couple of Bullfinches then chose to fly into a nearby treetop. Brilliant. After more diligent job-search-related business [which only caused me to bang my head against a wall a couple of times..] I had a look at the Harbour, where a couple of Rockits and at least 7 Purple Sands were among the boulders [I don't think that it's going to be possible to properly count them - at least without disturbing them - now that the pretty new blue boulders are covered in weed. There are too many places to hide; I think even using a kayak wouldn't get them all.] A calm Bay gave at least 3 GC and 2 BN Grebes in the north part of the Bay, plus a brief glimpse of the LT Duck off Preston [the distinctive colour and silhouette combination make it pickable at a very long distance if you don't have waves in the way {{Yes, a big 'if'}}]. No good gulls, of course.

This morning I went over to Cockington [having waited since last week for the mud to dry out a bit] [you get some impressive mud there, proper Devonshire Red stuff too, a lot of it] [[I'll get on with it now..]]. This is the south-western end of my Patch, somewhere I've been going to since I was teeny tiny small, it's full of history and memories. Also still full of brambles [in the borders and engulfing the apple trees..] and now breeze blocks - as they build all over the back of the Court - and less a lovely mature Lime Tree [another victim of the pogrom]. Hmm. Still, there are woods and ponds and proper fields - the only real farmland on my Patch.

I was hoping for a Coot on a pond, but got 49 Mallard [including assorted, er, assortments..] and 11 Moorhen instead. A Treeeeecreeeeper showed very nicely near the Gamekeeper's Cottage, and a couple of good sized groups of thrushes [mostly Redwing] included 5 Mistle [4 in one small field] but only a couple of Fieldfare. A crop field being strip-grazed held 50-odd mixed buntings, pipits, larks, wagtails and thrushes - viewed in sections as they were disturbed by the farmer moving the electric fence. Not a Patch Yeartick but very welcome were three Bullfinches in a thicket and then a surprise male on the hedge by the Lodge car park. Finally, this afternoon there were 56 GC Grebe and 3 Razorbill off Blackball.

Right then, to what I've been doing when not searching for gainful employment [[or should that be 'Being rejected by..']], looking for, or even at birds and so on. Yes, I'm talking about that goose...

'Known S x B hybrid, with Barnacles on The Fleet, first seen at Lodmoor' was what I had to go on. I've assumed that my Elders and Betters are right and it's the same bird, so all that remains is the question I have to ask; "How do we know it's a hybrid when it looks like a 1w?" There's a very simple answer, of course. The literature says that Snow Geese adopt an adult or near-adult head and body plumage from early November, finishing by February, with bare parts pinking up more slowly - sometimes staying partly dark through into 2w. So if it showed up in say, November, looking like it does now, then case closed, guilty as charged. Maybe it did. Maybe it's been there for years. Or maybe not - if it only arrived this month, or if it arrived earlier and was darker than it is now then how can you rule out a 1w?

So I went a' searching. Lodmoor's RSPB, with a sightings page and everything - surely a nice 'hybrid' would be mentioned.. Nope. Dorset Birds have changed their sightings site to a shiny new blog format which is very nice but has nothing before the 1st of January and no mention of any Snow x Barnacle hybrids. Dorset's mighty bloggers noted the Barnacle flock, but no mention of any tricky hybrids nor did any appear in any of the group shots posted. Looking for a nice hybrid that matched the Curry bird closely enough to say 'yes, they can look that similar so it's not safe to call as pure' would be perhaps an easier route? Yeah, right... Every one of them [mostly American, it has to be said] was definitely odd, with clear plumage and structural abnormalities easily visible to the quality of views I had at Curry Moor. The only productive thing I found was a record shot of [if I remember rightly] a 'juvenile' in Norfolk on 22/1/2002 - this being a white morph it's hard to tell how adult the head and body are, especially from a not great photo, but the bare parts are still dusky.

If I was properly hardcore I'd be back up there with a net cannon to get some DNA [ok, maybe not] - or at least get another look and maybe see something I missed [or maybe even see some more pink.. ;) ]. Being between careers and with the price of petrol, spending possibly several days haring around trying to find it again [You know it won't be where I left it..] isn't a viable option, and as it's been dismissed, nobody's going to find it for me [[Aww, diddums.. I hear you cry]]. It's funny, really. I went there all hopeful, got very negative upon first sight, did research and realised I was wrong, then got told no I wasn't...

What next? Well, I suppose I could do what I should have done from the start; do as I'm told and junk it without question. Or I could say "All the evidence I have points to it being a 1w blue morph Lesser Snow Goose - the only opposing evidence is hearsay*." and then go on with the logical progression. After all, I had to go digging around in Cramp et al to find out about 1w moult timings and why should I assume everyone else has? A seemingly adult Snow Goose with dark bits makes you instantly think hybrid and once someone says so, it sticks.**

[[*Namely: {Famous Somerset Birder} said {Famous Dorset Birder} said it was a known hybrid Snow x Barnacle]]

[[**I know I'm going to look like even more of an idiot than normal if this thing turns up on the Exe next winter looking just the same as it does now, but what the hell...]]

Better yet, I can stop going on about this on my blog and write something that's actually interesting for other people to read!

But why start now? ;)

PYL: 84