Sunday, August 05, 2007

Why do I find it hard to write the next line?

I bought a ticket to the World, but now I've come back again. And a mid-morning stomp round the patch looking for further evidence of a species new to science, 'Sykes's Reed Warbler'. I didn't see one, mind I was looking in the wrong habitat. Tbh, I didn't really see much at all, unless you want me to recount sentimental anthropomorhic passages about a Song Thrush smashing a snail. You don't btw - I know this much is true. As I walked down to the beach I saw a Great Skua in the bay, attended by a few Herring Gulls and eating something disgusting and stringy on the water, probably not unrelated to raft of Razorbills nearby. A Common Sandpiper flying across was a useful year tick for the patch, and there were 2 Grey Wagtails feeding among the jetsam with the Rock Pipits. Then walking up the cliff steps I first surprised myself by getting an in focus shot of a Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas by phone-cam...


...and then stumbled over a real treat for you dead-shrew obsessives out there. Cop a load of this one. A Eurasian Water Shrew Neomys fodiens! And moreover, one of the dark-bellied form. Oooh.. I haven't been this happy since they sacked Thatcher and she cried.


Not too common* round here either - only 4 records in the North-east Scotland Biological Record Centre database (website).
*or at least, not too commonly recorded - not the same thing at all.

If you're wondering why I put it in my notebook, it's because I need to squash it for display in my pressed-shrew collection - 27 19th century mahogany cabinets and counting. That's true that is. This one is getting a drawer to itself. It's like Gold.

15 minutes looking offshore produced 35 Northern Gannets, 1 Great Skua going south and 1 Common Scoter likewise. And on my way back through the Barricades I counted 11 Common Swifts over the courts. Went back in the evening (5 o' clock) for a further 45 minutes sat in the pissing rain (no one else would have considered it, but always believe in your soul, I say). I could pretend I saw 7 Great Skuas, but over the 45 mins regularly spaced at intervals it was 1 Great Skua north... 1 Great Skua south...
1 Great Skua north... 1 Great Skua south... 1 Great Skua north... 1 Great Skua south... 1 Great Skua north. It's blindingly obvious that this is just 1 Great Skua, patrolling, nay marauding, up and down this section of coast, getting some amazing squeaky noises out of the Black-legged Kittiwakes. It must be the sound of their souls. Only 3 Atlantic Puffins today, 3 Arctic Terns south, and 24 Sandwich terns back and forth. Ah ha ha haaaaah, ha!

2 comments:

John said...

You seem to have a talent for finding tiny corpses. In fact it's beginning to look a bit suspicious...how you just happen to find these little unfortunates...

I keep a collection of mammal pressings myself...squirrels mainly. Any suggestions on how to keep the fluids from eventually bleeding through the binding?

Martin said...

You should see my collection of naughty French tickling sticks, also found lying around randomly on paths...

And the shrew-juice - I line my boxes with those bags that jam (jelly) doughnuts come in - not quite paper, not quite plastic, but improbably somewhere in between.