Away Day - Part II

 On leaving Grey Lake a somewhat better view of

COMMON SNIPE

with a welcome but brief

bonus appearance of a

CETTI'S WARBLER
neither of which, although reasonably common, have not yet graced home turf.
En-Route to

this

COMMON BUZZARD

was considered worthy of a

Click 'n' a Clip
before the 'high jinx' started while scanning this

Field of Sheep 

and spotting one in distress unable to get back on its trotters so step foreward

His Dave-ship, with much farming experience in his youth, to right the matter knowing personally if I saw him bearing down on me I'd be up and off like a shot!
From the same spot we got our first sighting of

GLASTONBURY TOR
steeped in Arthorian myth and legend and thought we might pop over and have a cuppa with he, Guinevere and his old dad Uther Pendragon later?
The next encounter was with c3

CATTLE EGRET

stoping just briefly

to

capture them but

completely upstage just 10 minutes later as looking into this farmyard

to find another posing with a

BOVINE
Finally, for this leg of the visit at least, another 'targeted' semi-rarity in the form of a

BEAN GOOSE

at great distance which looked fine through a telescope

but not to clever otherwise but maybe these 2 from the archive

might help?

With Part III hopefully with you sooner rather than later?
THANKS for TUNING IN

Yet Another Away Day - Part I

 A single line from the first track of Peter Gabriel’s first and eponymous ‘solo’ album, “Moribund the Burgermeister” seemed to fit perfectly to describe our adventure to the Somerset Levels

This thing's outrageous, I tell you on the LEVEL it's really so ‘contagious’ must be the work of the devil!

At 05:10 and not even having reached the main road yet a ‘first for the year”

BARN OWL

with a lesser mortal maybe thinking we had used up all our good luck before even leaving the Sprinting Blocks, we were certainly going to need some later if the dream was to become true!
Meeting Dave Foot at Dorchester 45 minutes later we reached

just as the

Upper Limb of the Sun kissed the horizon, but best of all not as single vehicle in the
Car Park as given the 'rarity' of the target bird of the day we had expected an early morning mob!

All the 'usuals' were in attendance with clouds already swirling across an open sky including

WIGEON

SHOVELER (female)

ditto male

hundreds of

GOLDEN PLOVER

and

Mixed Waterfowl

each trying to avoid becoming breakfast for the occasional passing

MARSH HARRIER

By this time we had been joined by anouther gentleman who had hardly attached his teliscope to the tripod before announcing "there it is" with brief directions which Dave followed diligently while it took me some time, not unusual, to gain a first glimps of a rather sleepy and

EXTREMELY RARE

BAIKAL TEAL
(dead centre of the image second duck back)

zoom in to give a slightly better idea

but did perform quite well

for just a few minutes,

but nowhere long enough and while not wishing to appear blasé having seen thousands of these smart little ducks, particularly across 3 visits to South Korea, it was never in a wildest dream

considered a contender for our Graet Britain List with the total national sightings being only around the 20 mark ever?

Just to emphasis the point we have borrowed an image for clarity and will endeavour to get part 2 published in the very near future!

Happy Together - The Turtles (1967)

 Still attempting to catch up and only 38 full days into 2022 and already January has disappeared but not without leaving something of a mark we start with a mini recap. Starting on Day One (or more accurately Night One) we secured the first Moth of the year in the form of a likely migrant

SILVER Y
and across the following days

WINTER MOTH

DARK SWORD-GRASS
and

MOTTLED UMBER
which may have been considered bibliclly as
Walking on Water!

Despite that we have not yet (early days) been able to emulate it but with a balmy +12°C on the clock covering the first night of Feb we did manage to secure this

MINOTAUR BEETLE

along with the tiniest

WOODLOUSE
Add to that a none to shabby 71 species of Birds, across our Recording Area during that first month we consider to have got off to a half decent start? Back to the present and following that usual track it was seen that others were gathering to 

pursue their passions, more Horse Jumping me thinks, while out bound to the south one of last year's

SYGNETs
followed by more Strange Bedfellows

PHEASANT, CARRION CROW and MAGPIE
likely feasting on the corn we scattered there yesterday?

while on the way back the second survivour of a total of c7 eggs.
 We make no apology for continuing with the first 'repeat' of the new month either as being completely captivated by

the fabulous combination of both

GREEN SANDPIPER

and

GREY WAGTAIL

at the newley formed and now thawed

puddle

A veritable ***** Michelin to your average avian!

just off the main bridleway and showing no sighs of being anything but

HAPPY TOGETHER

Longham Lakes - Part II

 A long time in coming we hear you say, continued from Saturday, but all 'Good Things' come to those who wait especially if you are one of the

Angling Fraternity
who are now back in numbers, and while checking the island in the South Lake

EGYPTIAN GEESE

were in residence there

 along with

LAPWINGs

in company with
COMMON SNIPE and infuriating CANADA GOOSE

as is usual, and now they have cropped the screen of

SALLOWs
(left) down to ground level there are open views to the likes of

GREAT CRESTED GREBE

 

up and down

like the proverbial Fidler's Elbow,

while other Warefowl included

WIGEON

occasionally being attacked by one of the numerous
COOTs

along with numerous

POCHARD

with females, strangely, seemingly absent.

After the Snowdrops of recent days on home turf more signs of the oncoming spring our first

DAISIES
The 'bird of the morning' a very distant

CATTLE EGRET
on the
Hampreston Water Meadows

would not have been seen, let alone identified, if not for a passing Birder bearing a telescope, images from the archive, while all the time the contender for second place,

can you see it yet?

RAVEN

continuously calling from its lofty perch.