She's been living in her white bread land
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now shes looking for a downtown man
Thats what I am
It was very tempting... when news yesterday came up of an Upland Sandpiper at St Combs, the thought occurred to me that it just might be still there today, so I sneaked the telescope and bins into the back of the car and went to work as normal. At my advanced stage of life it's not often there's a life-tick within striking distance. Did an honest hour's innovative thinking (!) until news came on BirdGuides that it was showing, then drove the hour north for a keek. Surprisingly easy... over the hill, down the slope, set up scope, ker-ching lifer under the belt. When I turned up there were 5-6 people on it, but they drifted off and I had the little tease all to myself for an hour! I wish I'd brought a proper camera though - phone-scoping is nice but it doesn't really produce the goods.
I do have my errr... usual standard of meticulous and accurately captured field notes and biro drawings, but left my notebook at homw so will scan them in tomorrow. In the meantime... some record shots.
And gettaloadathis... twitching north-east Scotland-stylee
Unfortunately my superbly presented soundtrack is lost in the wind noises (matron!)... but it goes a little like this:
-I want to show you something...
-Upland Sandpiper
-And now the crowd...
-There you go.
The sandy turf was hoaching with Northern Wheatears, and a little further south there was a bare field with an impressive 25 Whimbrels in it. Then I got back to work, topped the car up with petrol on my way home, my crime is totally undetectable... neither my family nor my lab will have any clue that I wasn't in my office all morning. Unless they read this.
1 comment:
Oh really??? U were rumbled as soon as you stepped out the car carrying the A-Z road atlas, sweetie :-))
Dx
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