ABT

Jesus holy mary mother of god.  There's mega RBA stars all over the place. But none at all close to my home.  The best I've done lately was to go and have an 'educational' look at the 'educational' American Black Tern.  An 'educational' bird, it showed brilliantly after the long (for my hips) trudge around the bank.  I'd seen photos of the Farmoor (is that correct?) bird from a couple of years ago and read some literature on this (sub) species and was NOT bowled over immediately by the bird in the flesh.  When you read about tricky birds when you actually see them they usually stand out through jizz mainly I find, Pacific Goldie for example, though this was much more subtle.  Even at this range it was sometimes hard to tell where the auxillaries ended and the flanks began, making the feature of 'dark flanks' not as obvious as I would have imagined.  This feature is obvious in the photos splashed about though and is clearly an indication of just how shite I am.  Covenham Reservoir is not that far from Spurn as the crow flies so Mr Hutt has probably picked it out already from Clubley's and added it to the Spurn list! 

Still, a good bird, nay a great bird.  Distinctive in the end after a decent grilling.
Photos are on the finders' website here.  I love the head-on shot (9th photo down).

Fuck me I was drunk last night.  Not as drunk as last Sunday though I suppose.  Or Tuesday come to think of it.  Nicola tells me what I get upto the next morning just so I know.  Apparently last night I kept falling into deep, uncontrollable giggling fits like a little girl for no apparent reason whatsoever with, and I quote, "tears rolling down my face".  Sounds like a good night.  Just wish I could remember what the fuck I was laughing at because it was clearly highly amusing.

Glenn "Ollie" Oliver, whose father is hopeless at The Sun Dream Team, is working in South Africa (...and I've never met a nice South African and that's not bloody surprising man cos they're a bunch of arrogant bastards who hate black people) and has sent me a nice photo of a dickie bird he's seen there.
Here it is.

Hornbill sp.  Let's see that again heavily cropped.

Ah, Yellow Billed Hornbill.

Ollie described it as "I don't know what the fuck that is but it looks hungry".

Too right Ol.

Fucking too right.

...................