Sprites

I wanted to see a Firecrest, they're good aren't they?  Good bastards.  There had been a couple of them knocking around at Spurn, with one lingering in the canal hedge.  Bashed canal hedge to no avail, in fact fuck all mamma.  One Robin and a distinct lack of birds in general.  The Mipits had stopped moving, mid October there should still be at least a few.  Then a couple of Reed Bunts, then an odd Greenfinch (a perfectly normal Greenfinch actually, not odd as in 'weird' but odd as in 'only one'), then the local teenage Goldfinches hanging around in a field racing a couple of Honda c50's around said field, 2 Goldcrest and a Chiffchaff.  There were things around but no numbers of anything, jut singles or doubles of several species.

A Pallas's Warbler ranging between the Church and the Crown car park showed extremely well in the garden of Kew Villa.  Fucking stripey little cunt.  Bit of an outburst there.

Stood in the Churchyard for about 45 minutes, my mind starting to drift towards the dead that lay before me and for a moment thinking deep poignant thoughts as to the flimsy unpredictability that is life, compared to the final, inevitable, very predictable fate that awaited all of these fallen souls and of course bequeath them.  Added to this the bittersweet irony of being laid to rest in the house of our Lord, safe in the knowledge that there is no Lord and life itself is spawned from the greatest designer of all time, evolutionary process.

Speaking of design and evolution, two species that are truly superbly designed then came to pay there respects above the headstones.  The Pallas's from earlier and 2 Yellow-Browed Warblers.  No Firecrest, but these 3 showed very nicely with 2 Goldcrest (pah!) and a Chiffchaff (pah!).

All hail the Sprites, the leaders of the Phylloscopus family and guardians of our souls in our final resting place.
2 Barred Warblers were representative of the Devil at the gates of Hell, although I'm not quite sure why.



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