Pat

The woods.....and the darkness....and the howling vind,

will the snows never cease, they seem to reach back for ever.

After Garry Yorkslister had relocated the Semi-P the previous night at Patrington Haven, I decided to brave the howling vind and have a look down there.  It was probably the least successful days birding I have ever had.  And believe me that's against some pretty stiff competition.  On balance I probably identified around 3% of all birds seen today with the howling vind buffeting, nay, BUFFETING me and my optical equipment which included an onslaught of 3 tuna triangle sandwiches, a party sausage roll, a pineapple/sausage/cheese combo on a stick, and 4 obligatory mushroom vol-au-vonts!  Buffeting?  Get it? 
Sigh.

Meanwhile......the howling vind continued.  Some distant waders had some black either on their breast or belly (I couldn't tell) which made them either Dunlin or Turnstone.  Not sure which.  Then a few more were narrowed down to Plover sp. with either Grey, Ringed or White-tailed the favourites.  A curlew was fully identified until it flew directly into the air and sort of swirled around then hit the deck not far from me to reveal it's true identity as a bag.  A dead bag at that.  All the other waders present didn't even make it to genus level, entering the mental notepad as 300 wader sp!  How's that for cutting edge birding?  Then a dazzling kingfisher shot across before my very eyes.  Result! An identified bird, even down to species level!  10 pipits (obviously Pipit sp.) fed not far away when I noticed a much paler and taller bird amongst them!  12 hours of grilling later I decided it was a juvenile Yellow Wagtail.  A cream-crown flew across the sand dunes and salty air shitting up the wader sp, the Dunlins/Turnstones, the plover sp and the bag.  Some of the Shelduck flew but some didn't.  There.  Just thought you needed to know that.

The woods.....and the darkness....and the howling vind,

will the snows never cease, they seem to reach back for ever.

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