Beware of the Birding Gods

When you buy a house, any sane, normal person would look out for something like a gas, or electric, fire in the lounge/sitting/drawing (use as necessary) room. But oh no, not me, I got smitten a lovely solid fuel fireplace. Which is great in the winter time, but occassionally the chimney needs to be swept out to stop the risk of chimney fires.

So I had a load of clearing, tidying and vacuuming to do on Thursday evening, in preparation for the visit of Dick Van Dyke with his chim-chimminy sweeping brush the next day. Right at the same time Andy finds a Purple Sandpiper at Uttoxeter Quarry. D'oh, d'oh and double d'oh! It's a cracking find, but I just couldn't get over in time. But these things happen sometimes, my turn to be on the receiving end of the birding gods going against you.

But nevertheless, on both Friday evening and this morning (Saturday 4th September) there was still a good selection of waders without the Purple Sand, culminating with a juvenile Spotted Redshank last night. It wasn't around this morning but there were 1 Greenshank, 2 Green Sands, 3 Common Sands, 7 Ringed Plover, 2 Little Ringed Plover, 1 Dunlin. In addition to the waders were a Whinchat last night, and this morning a Raven, 3 Yellow Wagtails, 4 Grey Wagtails.


And so to Blithfield. Starting around the deep end, to the surprise of the Blurred Birder and I, we found a juvenile Cuckoo.


Really not something I was expecting to see. Also around the deep end was a Curlew Sandpiper in the concrete bay with 17 Ringed Plovers and 7 Dunlin.


Tad Bay had an Osprey fly over, 4 Greenshank, 3 Pintail and 8 Wigeon. While Blithe Bay held 3 Ruff, 4 Greenshank and 1 Redshank.

I have a week off work next week. Not planning to go away anywhere but there'll be some birding, and subsequent blogging, involved. Starting tomorrow, with I think a day out at Spurn.