Disappointing lack of peripheral blogging

I actually think the birds can be a bit boring on a blog. Does anyone care how many gannets I saw today?* Even me? Really what I'd like to do is to fill it up with petty libels, anecdotes, woodpecker news**, Heroes of the Birding Revolution etc. Can't manage that at the moment, hence the disappointing lack of peripherals. My Iberian Chiffchaff paper is just about published, but as the deadline looms for the submission of the revised version, I find I'm not happy with it... i.e. not happy with the quality of some of the sonograms, not happy with the order of the text, not happy with the text, not even 100% happy with all my conclusions. So I've been spending my evenings getting that sorted, rather than working on my screenplay of the secret sex life of great ornithologists living and dead.

*One actually... a bird with black secondaries. White tail though - apparently near adult. I bet one day there'll be a Cape Gannet to be found in our waters, but I wouldn'tlike to be the one claiming it. There is a rejected record of one from Bass Rock in 1831.

**There is some woodpecker news, but it would be unprofessional and disrespectful to tell you. Elvis has apparently left the building, though.

Birding burding... I was back around Newtonhill today. Nice day, not many birds. but 4 Eurasian Skylarks singing round Cran Hill, and that aforementioned Northern Gannet, suggesting spring might be back one day.

A Grey Wagtail was back on the Elsick Burn for the first time in a few weeks, and there was a flock of 40 Eurasian Curlews on the rocks, with 19 Common Eiders and 2 Mallards on the sea. Some Northern Fulmars were flying around aggressively (?), also a single Black-legged Kittiwake and the usual gulls etc.

A Mistle Thrush feeding in the field by the railway line was uncommon enough here to be worth scoping. That is so sad. Smart bird tho.