Sunday, June 17, 2007

All this, and birding too

It's been a busy blogging day... and it's getting busier, cos I've been birding too. I was out birding on Wednesday morning (13th June) but have to face it, spring is OVER and I didn't really get a decent migrant on the patch. I was only asking for an Icterine Warbler or something, nothing like a Calandra Lark or anything flashy. Wednesday was too boring for words and I was a bit dispirited.

However, Sunday morning, today, after a good sleep, 50 kg of Fathers' Day chockies and a delivery of high quality Colombian cocaine (lying about the cocaine, in case you were wondering), I was reborn... the pep is back and I went out at 9 am... to see not much, but this time it didn't matter.

Must be hard work being a Common Blackbird - one with an crippled foot was hopping along the track by the burn, still seeing off a rival male in spite of his injury. A Blackcap was singing from the bushes exactly where that Garden Warbler was a couple of weeks ago. They have ver
y simialr habitat preferences and compete for territories, in a mutually exclusive manner. I know it must be true cos I made it up myself/read it in a book. Decide for yourself which of those options is likely to be true. Tbh, not sure that even I know any more.

Offshore, from 10-11 am (when the sun got in my eyes, I spied3 Red-throated Divers going north, and 1 south. You can't beat summer divers. I guess by now these are non-breeders, for whatever reason? 4 Manx Shearwaters north. 2 Arctic Skuas (Parasitic Jaegers) north, 4 Sandwich Terns south. Also a bit of a passage of Common Scoters (IOC: Black Scoters, now there's a mad m
ad mad decision) with 96 north. Occurred to me that one day I'll spot a Surfie from here, given that I see 1000s Common Scoters over the course of the year. It'll be a McEwans Export day when that happens.

In the gardens at the corner of Newton Road, there was a fresh hybrid Carrion x Hooded Crow high in the pines. And hungry. It actually looked very hoodie... smooth grey bits, not speckled or very dark like most of the hybrids round here.

I didn't get a photo of it... but I did get this snail. Phonecam again.

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