Wednesday 15 October 2008

Home

Had Rob been at home this morning, he would have had a third house tick found by me, but as he wasn't, he didn't. Does that make sense? It's been a long day. Anyway, there was a Great Grey Shrike in the Virkie Willows first thing this morning, but it had flown off towards Scatness by the time Rob got there. The reason for his delay was that he'd relocated yesterday's Coal Tit in Toab, and was helping the assembled masses to look for it.

However, he did have one house tick today - there was a Goosander on the Pool just after I left. I looked for it out of the plane window when we took off, but I couldn't see it.

When I got in to Birmingham airport this evening I switched my phone on to find a message from Rob saying that he'd caught up with the Long-tailed Tit at Sumburgh Hotel today as well - photos on the Shetland website.

I'm going to hibernate now - next post will probably be in the spring...

5 comments:

The Drunkbirder said...

What about dragging your sorry arse to Burrough Hill on Saturday to do a bit of vismigging?

The Leicester Llama said...

Can't get out this weekend John - we've got some friends staying. I was planning to get over there and find myself a Richard's Pipit (or anything more exciting than a few Chaffinches and Starlings flying over) some time next week though...

Russ Malin said...

Blimey. It's not very often you see Coal Tit and assembled masses in the same sentence.

The Leicester Llama said...

It's a different world up there Russ - no tits, no woodpeckers, no Magpies or Jays, no Tawny Owls, and species such as Little Bunting, Short-toed Lark and Pallas's Warbler aren't even description species, etc, etc.

The Drunkbirder said...

Thankfully neither is Barred Warbler. Though see my blog for a crappy but tickable photo.

Andy the Lapland Bunting was a flyover as you'd expect. After quite a heavy Thrush passage things were quietening down save for a small number of Skylarks. They were going through in ones and twos. Dave then heard the Lap Bunt but at first we were a bit confused as it was giving the 'teu' note before and after the usual 'trillit' call. Dave's kind of disappointed as he didn't actually see the bird. I saw the arse end as it vanished over the earthworks but I've already got Lap Bunt on my County list so I wasn't as fed up as Dave. Vismigging there is ok but the sun is a problem whereas at Deans Lane a tree nicely blocks out the sun.