The Tops!

First of all I'd like to thank my 3,000th viewer from Inverkeithing - the readers keep me blogging even if half of those hits are my own :). After no further ado - today.

I was going on my first Birdforum mett in a while after missing the last 2. During these i'd missed Black Kite, Shore Lark and Little Tern - 2 lifers and a Yorks tick. Today iscored none of those things but had a great time. It was good to meet Pete (NaturePete) and to reaquaint with Julie (Jay-jay) and see the rest of the usual crew (skink1978,bitterntwisted, marcus conway-ebirder, birdieboy123, keith dickinson, lawts & unclelawts) and a shame to miss Mark who slept in. Today we were off on the Yorkshire Belle scene of the Great Shear last year. I also nearly missed the boat when i slept through my alarm only to be woken by Julie outside my house.

I race off and a McD's does the trick to wake me. The cruise itslef was anticlimactic with 7 Bonxies a couple of Arctic Skuas and singles of Sooty and Manx shearwater. Other bits included a couple of Little Gulls, lots of Porpoise and some Common Scoter, all fairly standard. Upon landing and fish and chips most decided to go to Tophill Low.

Landing at Tophill we immediately see a birder on something. A Hobby it turns out and we get good views of 2 birds. There had been no sign of the RF Falcon in the morning and we duly went elsewhere first seeing a Spotshank and a few Ruff and single Dunlin at Watton Borrow Pits. Sat on the pylon was a Common Buzzard. The azure streak of a Kingfisher zipped by and we made our way to South Marsh, where bar a few teal there was nothing. Until a Falcon appeared over the trees. Slate-grey all over and red vented with red boots. We all got flight views followed by it preening in a tree. In order to get better views we moved round to the side of O res but it failed to show. An adult Hobby zipped through but that was our lot. A check on D res revealed the BNG distantly plus a Sparrowhawk over and a Fox in the fields. Very excellent.