Saturday, 29 March 2014

Spurn. 24th March

Went to Spurn again.  Not been too many times this year what with working away pet refurbing and installing portacabins.


Bordagabin.


Did 'BehindWhiteHorse' first as I often do.  Nil.  Nada.
Then Sammy's in the hope of a Wheatear or a Yellow Wag then I realised it was still only 24th March and thoughts of a Yellow Wag were probably somewhat frivolous.


friv·o·lous

  [friv-uh-luhs]
adjective
1.
characterized by lack of seriousness or sense when hoping for a Yellow Wag in March: frivolous conduct.
2.
self-indulgently carefree; unconcerned about or lacking any serious purpose when thinking about Yellow fucking Wags in March.
3.
(of a person or Yellow Wag) given to trifling or undue levity: a frivolous, empty-headed person or Yellow Wag.
4.
of little or no weightworth, or importance; not worthy of serious notice especially of Yellow Wagtails in March: a frivolous suggestion of Yellow Wag.  In March.
Origin: 
1425–75; late Middle English  < Latin Motacilla flava worthless, trifling.


So there.  How interesting.
There were no Wheateaters or, somewhat unsurprisingly, Yellow Wagtails in the area.  I did however see a Meadow Pipit.

It's high tide.  I might go have a look on Beacon Ponds.  Alright, I will.  And I did.  The water level was ridiculously high and any chance of wader action was defunct.  Poor fieldcraft.  I picked up a calling Chiff along Beacon Lane before heading to Kilnsea Wets to see if any wader action was appertaining.  There was but not much.  Curlew, Redshank, and a Snipe.  Hmmm.  Ha, a White Wag with two Pied Wags!  Beautiful sub-species migrant action.  The Brents then started coming in to bathe, drink and piss.  I started counting them to relieve the boredom but some of them were walking: LEFT, some were walking: RIGHT and some were still but then decided to move LEFT and RIGHT.  Just keep still.  I got upto 118 when another load flew in.  Shit bags.  Starting again, I got to 176 when another load flew in.  Tits.  I did this 48 times until I got to a figure of 365.  They then shimmied off into the next field so I left and as I got to the car another c.120 Brent Gooses flew in to join the other 365 Brent Geeses.  So after obtaining a really accurate count I then had to guess at c.120 to add to the 365.  The accurate count that took about two months to complete was then downgraded to a circa 485 which is quite a good number really.

Now the grand finale.  The contents of this post have been quite mind numbing so far but this should lift your spirits:


A crane lifting a bordagabin.



Excitement.





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1 comment:

  1. More excitement: I saw my first ever Wheatear and Meadow Pipits today. I'm almost certain I also saw a Twite, although I'm new to birding and needed help to spot it amongst a mixed flock of Meadow Pipits and Linnets.

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