The start of October!

After yesterday's pure fantasy and dreamscape vision of the Anthill Crane turning up at Spurn.........that's exactly where I went.  I was even checking fields from Patrington to Easington on the way!
Was I asking too much?!
Anyway, not surprisingly there was no Anthill Mob seen today but Dick Dastardly was seen going south..........ha............hahahahahahaha......very poor. 
[Reader:  you mean to say that you've built it up over the last two days, slowly changing "Sandhill Crane" to "Anthill Mob" just so you could do that joke?  Well I'm not reading this shite anymore, that's it.  That was rubbish, I mean I don't even know who Dick Dastardly is]

So no Sandhill Crane or 'Playa del Tor el Cranio' as they're known in Spanish.

Northerly windiness meant seabirds would be the order of the day and so it proved.  Before I arrived 8 Poms and a single Long-tailed Skua had passed along with Black-throated Diver, a final count of 189 Red-throats, Balearic, Manx and Sooty Shearwaters amongst big numbers of  more common stuff.  I'd missed the best of it but I still recorded 15 Red Throated Diver, many Kittiwake, single Sooty Shearwater, many Gannets, Guillemot and 2 Arctic Skuas, one of which chased a Kittiwake for a tiny morsel of food for ages, probably about 4 hours.  The energy expelled chasing the Kitt must've far outweighed the nutritional value of the scrap of food itself.  They should stop it. Gulls do it too.  I was in Sainsbury's car park only yesterday when 2 Herring Gulls started chasing another Herring Gull with something in its bill.
I shouted to one of them "Oi, do you not realise that the energy expenditure obtaining the food item from the Gull will probably outweigh the nutritional value gained from said foodstuff, not to mention that probability suggests that you only have a 1 in 3 chance of being the Gull that actually eats the food, you fucking stupid bastard".
An elderly lady stopped me in my tracks.
"People like you are a disgrace" said the elderly grey-haired old angel.
"Oh, erm, sorry about my language but I simply mean well-being to the birds and was using forceful language as I feel strongly about it" I replied.
"Oh, I don't give two flying FUCKS about your language, sonny, I mean it's a disgrace that your mathematics aren't up to scratch.  I think that the statistical data you gave to the Gull might have been misleading as it is surely less than 1 in 3 due to the fact that the Gull who has the foodstuff in its mouth is a clear favourite to finally eat the food.  It has the chance at any time" she said.
Perhaps she was right.
The tiny frail bespectacled lady then took her teeth out, dropped to her knees and said "do you want me to gum it for you, sonny?"
I had no idea what she meant and simply left with some shopping.



Meanwhile......................



....................back at Spurn................


..........3 Stonechat, Whinchat, 2 Wheatear, Yellow Browed Warbler was a cracker as ever, Barnacle Goose along with a Pink-foot in the Triangle, a Merlin flew surprisingly high over Beacon Lane, and a Hawfinch finally showed very well just as I was heading back to the car.  Not a common visitor to Spurn may I add.