Sunday 28 - Can you feel the tension?

So, we're in that 'last few days of May'... memories of Ancient Murrelet, Pallas's Sandgrouse, Alpine Accentor triple whammies. The days for the 'big one'. Nervous shaking fingers around Britain checking Birdguides, Birdlines, pagers etc., excited, yet fearful (please God, not Foula!). No worse than that, Sula Sgeir! But it's only the teeny tickers that need long staying trash like BB Albatross. Oooh, and me, of course. No, what's mega and accessible... errrr... 'possible Heuglin's Gull, Dunge'. ffs! Please not 10 pages of BirdForum about an unidentifiable seagull? My advice, go out and find your own unidentifiable seagull. It's easier, and your list stays just the same. So, I was out looking at seagulls. Praise the Lord Lucifer etc. they're all Herring Gulls and Kittiwakes. That made things soooo much easier.

In the absence of megas, i've become a bird of a bird nester. At least, I get a kind of pleasure from proving I'm cleverer than birds by knowing where their nests are. Turns out the birds are cleverer than I am. But I'm pretty certain I know where my Grey Wagtails are nesting. They're a bit cagey about it, but I've found the spot where they don't like me to be. They can scold in a most piercing manner. Similarly Rock Pipits. I was trying to seawatch and they made me get up and go away, with a really irritating alarm note. Mostly the auks were all just sat on the water again, feeding (100 Guillemots, 150 Razorbills, 20 Puffins). A small number of gannets were flying back and forth, 1 Red-throated Diver went south, and some Sandwich Terns feeding offshore.

I used to think that Wood Warblers were my favourite bird. That was when I lived in Wales and used to see them! NOW, well I'm kind-of warming to the charms of Sedge Warblers. Nice and easy to identify, always doing something interesting... the only thing they can be strung as is Moustached and Aquatic, and no one is silly enough to try it any more, so they are bullet proof. And by the Lord Harry, they are such gorgeous things and they are always up to something interesting. Yes, I... I... I.... think I love them, but I'm scared of the commitment (just ask the Wood Warblers)