Catch Us If You Can - The Dave Clark 5

From time to time we do seem to overlook one or two things such as
publishing photographs soon after they are taken, or stepping up to the
plate when it's our turn to buy the beer but we only allow the latter to occur
FREQUENTLY!
Such has been the case with our New Years Day catch from the
Moth Traps

so a chance now to redress that.

We didn't expect anything at all, despite and overnight temperature of
+6°C

but

MOTTLED UMBER

c2 in fact were plucked from the trap,and as we set out on our
New Year's Day Twitch 

c8 'free flying'

WINTER MOTHs

were also recorded.

02/01/2017

was, by contrast, a Cold and Frosty Morning with

Some Lovely Morning Skies

As can be seen from the picture sun present route (yellow) 

now above the équinox of 21st (blue). Meteorological Spring just 8 weeks away!

A morsel of 'Self Indulgence' we feel as we concentrate most of the rest of this Post

on very obliging 'Herons' which came to us, so we thought we'd let you have them too!

GREAT WHITE EGRET with CORMORANT

@ LONGHAM LAKE

That seemed somewhat like 'overindulging' in 'overindulgence'?

NEST
considered to be that of a Jay.

On our return to
Slight Return II
we noticed out of the corner of an eye this

LITTLE EGRET

atop one of the partially dead

OAK TREES

JACKDAWs

PIED WAGTAIL

my new neighbour takes sanctuary on the skylight of
Slight Return II
between bouts of feeding on the lawn directly outside, which is also alert to us moving the
Strange Rover
first thing in the morning to continue the pusuit of food from the softer ground.
WE ARE ANTICIPATING AN 'EXTRA POST' TOMORROW!
PLEASE TUNE IN. 

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Nobodies Fault But Mine - Led Zeppelin

Nobodies Fault But Mine

but over the holiday period we have fallen behind by

2 or 3 Posts and will endeavour to catch up over the next few days.

Firstly!

Were it not for Channel 4 News and University Challenge my Idiot's Lantern would have been consigned to the gash bin long before now. It is thought that most of my very few 'close friends' know this and that is why a text asking "is it OK to phone you now"? was received on the evening of December 29th rather than a direct phone call. Of the latter, Jeremy Paxman already had the question cards in hand and was introducing the teams about to contest the Christmas Final, so all else had to wait. Phoning Dave Foot a full 30 minutes later, found he was enquiring about taking me on a 'twitch' the following day, something I have pretty much got out of my system in recent years. However, like every rule........ after explaining the quality of the Birds in prospect it was simply a case of 'hook - line - and sinker'. As an aside, it is a wonder he wants to take me anywhere at all as on our last sortie, the Hudsonian Whimbrel in Cornwall, at our rendezvous in Dorchester it was discovered that my binoculars were safely tucked away back at Slight Return II. There was to be none of that this time as just before 04:00 on the day mentioned the optics were securely fastened around my neck, and so we set off. As usual the conversation was buoyant from the start and reaching the spur-road some 2 miles down the road my drift shifted to a photograph taken a few days ago which in turn alerted me to the fact that this time it was the big camera which remained safely stowed back at Slight. Again, Nobodies Fault But Mine. Without batting an eyelid Dave turned about and the camera was retrieved, but that was not the only hold up as the FOG was also hampering our progress! 4+ hours later we arrived at

in the heart of the

Derbyshire Peak District

and joined the mini

THRONG

in a Horse Paddock where the Bird had last been seen the day before.

A couple of false calls of misidentified Redwing were followed by the

relocation of the real thing, and what followed would have put the squaddies

at the Trouping of the Colour to shame.

As one, the now growing rank of Twitchers made a smart 'left turn'

and marched over to the dry-stone wall where best could be seen the

 DUSKY THRUSH

only the 7th ever to have been recorded throughout our

Green and Pleasant Land.

Given the birds World Range that is hardly surprising, but having 

travelled through much of this area this wonderful creature was a

'World Lifer' for both of us!

Now in fairness, maybe my own 'best' photograph should have been shown

before the one above, nicked from Wikipedia for illustration purposes, but

in the name of avoiding a stampede for SpecSavers it was thought best to publish that

NOW!

 Avoiding disappointment throughout the Readership - what a Beauty??

and 'cropped', just behind that clod Missus!

It did remain distant and mobile throughout our stay but good views 

were afforded via Dave's Kowa Telescope and we were happy to move on.

As we headed for Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, the Sun did its best to burn off the residue fog,

but at the precise moment we passed the welcoming road sign

it dropped again like a Theatre Fire Curtain. Not at all difficult to find as when passers by saw

our equipment they came running over to point the way

Maybe in any other 'crowd' of no more than a dozen twitchers the

 BLUE ROCK THRUSH

might easily have been seen but one had to wait ones turn to
gain best views at the gate, as the garden was

surrounded by high hedges and filled with bushy plants.

A little bit better than the Dusky

but we wont bore you with all the pathetic excesses.

The Distribution Map shows

that this bird occurs a little closer to home but nonetheless
had to put in a bit of an effort to get here.
This again is thought to have been only the 7th for Great Britain
and while I had seen the Cornwall bird in 2000 this was an addition to
Dave's GB List,

 This is how it should look (Wiki)

and how it could look in months to come (ditto).
The continuing fog combined with rapidly fading daylight 

deterred us from trying for the Blythe's Pipit too many miles further on,
but by way of consolation it was report not to have been seen that day or thereafter.

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New Year's Day Twitch - Part II

Historically, even as far back as the mid-70's, when work and travel allowed the priority on New Year's Day would be to undertake a 'twitch'. As often as not these early days adventures were undertaken with my dear friend Hugo Wood-Homer, together with whom we once held the Dorset Record of 119 for a number of years. Gone are the days as with modern technology, mobile phones, pagers, tweeter, or whatever they are called, and even in some cases the hiring of boats to scan the remote corners of for instance Poole Harbour the record must stand much higher than our paltry 119. Simple fact, records are there to be broken, so long may it continue! Back to 01/01/2017 and it wasn't even 09:00 when

GOLDFINCH

was committed to the log and soon after

BLUE TIT

and

GREENFINCH

were added. Time to return to the southern side of the 

Recording Area

in the hope of a few more 'quick additions' first of which was

ROOK

at their traditional feeding grounds at 

Bournemouth International Airport.

Driving past Parley Pond and completely unexpected

as to location, this

WIGEON

was found there and luckily so as the only sighting of the day.

To our shame

HOUSE SPARROW

had been completely overlooked, but welcomed, as were

GREAT TIT

FIELDFARE
and

MEADOW PIPIT

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER
may well have suffered the same fate as House Sparrow had it
not been for a 'drumming' bird high in the Oaks, but with

CORMORANT
and

STARLING
there was no fear of that.
No, the fear, if you'd like to call it that, came from quite another
direction and all in the name of 'haste'!
How does it go? "More haste less speed",. well never a truer word uttered
as we decided to 'drive' along the bank of the River Stour, soon to find
our self hub-cap deep in thick, squidgy, grey clay. A call to Gavin, Hugh and
Janet's youngest son got him to scramble the tractor and head my way, while wanting to play my part
it was off to 18 Acre to 'twitch'

COMMON SNIPE

and
LAPWING
of which only c2 could be found.
That man can drive anything and soon had me back on the road,
a little crestfallen and muddier than previously, but a bottle of
Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum
might just be in order in this case!
Back up north we were met by a most obliging, even if somewhat distant,

JAY
and a couple of

COLLARED DOVE
while most obligingly c5

TEAL

had returned to the Irrigation Pond.

Between there and the Heath the rain set in 'big time' and it also

seemed like the end of daylight hours, but we forged on to record

COAL TIT

LONG-TAILED TIT

EGYPTIAN GOOSE

DARTFORD WARBLER
c5 in fact

GREEN WOODPECKER

 LINNET

 WOODCOCK
c4 in fact but still light years away from capturing our own photo.

a 'skein' of c54
CANADA GEESE

 BULLFINCH

 NUTHATCH

and the final entry of the day
TREECREEPER

bringing up a grand total of 58.
This exceeded the 2016 total by a full 'dozen' but in the deficit column
were such staples as Stonechat, Mistle Thrush, Green Sandpiper,
Kingfisher, Reed Bunting and Cetti's Warbler but
YOU NEVER GET THEM ALL!

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