Beyond the Horizon - Bob Dylan Part III

 Having given Bob and Zep a fair crack of the whip across our humble

BUCHAN ALPHA
trilogy thus far, we thought it appropriate to clue it up with a riff of a similar nature from Pink Floyd.

High Hopes

as they always were:-

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young, in a world of magnets and miracles. Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary, the ringing of the division bell had begun!

YET ANOTHER 'FALL' OF MIGRANTS

WATER RAIL

which were only occassional.

and considered unusual a
MOORHEN

but nowhere as unexpected as this
BLACKBIRDS NEST

found in the manifold area with eggs 120 miles from land may have been a spoof by one of them there Roughnecks??

Rule Number One = You don't give The Hammer the run-around even if you do happen to be a

PEREGRINE FALCON

catching a

GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL 

on the Helicopter Safety Netting before catching a second in the Moon Pool                                   (the central square cut out of the centre of the rig through which the pipework runs to the seabed)

as most Rig Rats know that is my Part of Ship as well.
(a juvenile as wide as we are tall - and there's the distant Standby Boat the Far Seeker)

He soon had it in captivity, a make-shift cage knocked up and placed in the luggage compartment of

the next 'chopper - no travel docs or manifest required! While in 2005 we had no luck capturing or 'clicking' the only known

PALLAS'S WARBLER

to grace our decks

Eye-brow, crown-stripe and wing-bars in oppose to the many dozens of

YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER's
across the years. 

Along the long road and on down the Causeway, do they still meet there by the cut? There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps, running before time took their dreams away! Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground, to a life consumed by slow decay.

Pink Floyd from the album - The Division Bell

More night-time activity attracted to the Flare may have included this

Silver Y Moth

RED ADMIRAL

STARLINGs

scarce
PIED FLYCATCHER

THE HOVERFLIES
(Syrphus Ribsii)
and

REED BUNTINGs
but not the

PIPE-FISH
most likely Gull assisted? and unfortuneately, like many, many others a deceased male

REDSTART
and a final flurish of

SISKIN

TURTLE DOVE
and female

WIGEON
to name but a few.

 After my departure from the Buchan Alpha and the North Sea altogether, to persue further travels, Dave Penny confidently took over the reins adding

LAUGHING GULL

with photographic evidence and not surprisingly as
from the America's an addition to the North Sea List,
along with a second

OSPREY
image from the archive as having lost the original.

until the unfortunate demise of the North Sea Bird Club - all that money swilling about in that industry and they couldn't sustain the club despite it being an integral part of Aberdeen Univercity??

and ending with something of an irony as it wasn't any of the crew that saw the last of Buchan, but Dave Foot who was Birding in the area of the

KISHORN BREAKERS YARD

and YES we are consumed by Rock 'n' Roll lyrics particularly when there is a subliminal message as attached,

which is why part of Zepellin's Kashmir is tattooed to the stern-sheets of our stately home.

With my Shipmate Jim the Medic we did step into Kashmir for a short while when travelling through and across India back in 2004, just for the craic and in recognitian of this song.

Duck's Ditty - Kenneth Graham

Drawing more or less a total blank on home turf yesterday and with c3 'scarce' or maybe even 'rare' birds to some across Longham Lakes it was thought time to try and cut our losses.

CASPIAN GULL

which proved ellusive on a previous search,

CATTLE EGRET
which has already been seen on a number of visits this year and

SIBERIAN CHIFFCHAFF

were all certainly worthy of a try!
We will end the suspence here - we didn't find one of them!!
With other fair which either never enter our home air-space, along with others that are infrequent visitors we didn't return to base empty handed.

Not the start we would have wished for as the Lumberjacks were already in action
sawing down the remaining Sallow trees, having already put the large Gull flock to flight.

The elegant

GREAT-CRESTED GREBE

isn't even on our "might appear one day list"

our tiny puddles being totally inadequate for

such a hunter.
(now hoping for Sod's Law to happen in reverse)
A common and often numerous resident on our patch is the

STONECHAT
which for whatever reason somehow seems somewhat out of place at this location.
All to infrequent also are a combination of

POCHARD 

“All along the backwater,
through the rushes tall.
Ducks are a-dabbling,
up tails all!
by no means annual, the magical

MEDITERRANEAN GULL

which is an occassional passage bird (already having graced our Patch this year)

and also attracted in numbers to the plough.

While regular readers will recall the appearance of half-a-dozen
Female SHOVELLER

this year

male's still remain
Mighty Ellusive 

Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
yellow feet a-quiver.
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!”

and finally the equally dapper

but even more infrequent, in both sexes, the

WIGEON

On the Brink of Breeding

 Thursday arrived with an unexpected

GROUND FROST
and a timely reminder of what Franklin and his 2 Oppo's

might have left in thier wake?
HOLM OAK

right outside of our window is the food plant of the fairly recent G.B. colonist the

OAK RUSTIC
which we now catch annually, in reasonable numbers, with hopes now turning to no damage having been done to change things? Down south kicked of with a second

SKYLARK

with very brief

and uncaptured

short bouts of rutting from the local

ROE DEER
but taking pride of place

some interest already being shown

by a predicted
HOUSE SPARROW

but not to the liking of a marauding
STARLING
(centre)

Up north the
COLLARED DOVEs

continue busying themselves with nest building activities with, as yet
not catching sight of the construction.
At the Irrigation Pond there was something of a surprise as a

COOT

was found there with nothing strange in that but initially thought to be the male which has spent the whole of the winter with u on the Gravel Pit. It was only when realising that this was a female that it was considered another individual before a second, a

male,

chugged out of the reed-bed.
On the way round to check if the long-stayer was still there, we encountered a singing and mobile

DUNNOCK

worthy of

click 'n' clip
before finding the original

maintaining station.
Let Breeding Commence!

The Only Way is Up - Yazz and the Plastic Population

 Absent for a number of days now we thought we might have seen the last of the Northern Thrushes, but maybe not so the Starlings just yet!

Commuting from Tree to Turf

the least numerous of the trio

FIELDFARE

were certainly 'bunkering' (a naval expression for taking on fuel)

between the vocals.
Far more numerous,

maybe in the regeon of 2 to 300 the

STARLINGs

were certainly keeping up with the others even though they may not have

quite the distance to go?

Lastly and holding the middle-ground as far as numbers go the

REDWING
were employing thier tried and tested tactic of fistly 'Looking' as above,

Listening
and then

Striking
when the time was right.
With seemingly little else to keep us in the southern reaches we made to go, but quickly with
Anchor's Away,
we stopped to make the most of a
WORLD 'LIFER'....

Occassionally seen on Channel 4 News, along with attendant moans, it was refreshing to think back to how GOOD we all were during our generation of childhood - Yeah, Alright!
Arriving at the Ponds up north it was as though someone had switched the lights off as as across both watercourse the c8 species of Waterfowl had reduced to just c2 the

LITTLE GREBE
and

COOT
but in the knowledge that "the only way is up"!
Lastly, at least until tomorrow a bit of a barrier as the track to the northern paddocks is now

Blocked by This
cum-on, which one of you is guilty??