A Little Walk

My final day of sick leave and I decided to try and walk a little further along the coast - not far and very slow but it seems I'm quite a bit better thankfully. I also tried to record some peak counts for common stuff on the patch. The place was jumping with Robins as I noted 49 south of the drain. I also managed a patch tick Lesser Redpoll or 20 as a bit of light vismig went on. Additional to this I added Grey Wagtail and Siskin to the patch yearlist. Nowt else really to add aside from a huge skein of Pink-footed Geese which passed south way offshore and looked to be in the order of 180 birds (the skeins dont generally get above 200 when migrating although the get much much bigger on wintering areas).

Not quite right,

Rather annoyingly I have been suffering from gastric problems for much of the last month. I wont bore you with those other than to say it is quite sore! I am now hopefully on the mend after taking a week off sick but this has allowed me to make the occasional foray out to alleviate the boredom. Sadly my SX50 has packed up so no photos currently. There have been a few new birds for the patch and the undoubted highlight was a a Yellow-browed Warbler in the bush of dreams at Ulrome. This newly christened locale (after a Garden Warbler last month) links two sets of trees with an elderberry hedge and some clematis. Ideal to catch warblers moving through and hopefully one day will produce something a little rarer. Right now the little stripey job will suffice!

Aside from this there was a Barnacle Goose north today and a brace of Mergs south on Tuesday. All in all a reasonable haul and the goose was another patch tick. Best of all though was my first Yorkshire Basking Shark which made slow progress north off Ulrome at lunchtime before submerging into the briny depths. After a couple out of Wick which I guess counts as East coast and a few dozen off of Cornwall whilst seawatching over various trip this is by far the most impressive sighting although the shark was pretty small at about 3m long.

I have been doing the pan-listing thing still but have little or nowt to report recently. Fingers crossed my guts recover soon enough and there is something meatier to tell you about.