Reg Reveals All

 Yes indeedy - that got your attention hey? Should get a few more page hits too with any luck. Anyway, suffice it to say Reg has not been resting on any laurels and is still giving it 110% right up to the years end. Its beginning to pay off too as he had little auk and lapland bunting over the weekend, whilst also adding quail to the list after claiming one back in the summer (whatever that really was...).

In a bid to put the frighteners on Basil, he's also claiming that Jack Snipe, Velvet Scoter, LEO, Snow Bunting, Glauc, Iceland gull and slav are all virtually nailed on before the 31st Dec....

All to play for then, as it gets that little bit tighter at the top. Reg needs just four species to catch Basil, while Seppy still requires five, which is probably a stretch at this stage, but ya never know. #Believe

Thanks for the boost chief! 👍

Incapacitated as I am by only having one leg at present, getting down to the patch, and moving around to actually do any meaninful birding is proving a challenge.

That said, press-ganging various family members into taking me birding on mental health grounds hasn't been entirely fruitless. Indeed, this very Thursday just gone -- on my birthday, no less -- I managed to cajole Sybil into a jaunt down to the patch, yielding a fine male Shoveler on the lake.

Shoveler on the lake... majik... well, for a duck, at least.

And it's not just the family stepping up. In all fairness, credit where credit's due and all that jazz. Seppy has been a rock through this journey of hardship and slow recovery.

A smallish, somewhat reluctant rock, it has to be said, but he has occasionally succumbed to my repeated badgering to give me the odd spin for a cursory look around the patch. In spite of his valiant efforts to suppress as much as humanly possible, these mini-sojourns have yielded an immpressive total of two (count-em) year-ticks over the last five weeks or more. The first, a fine Yellow-browed Warbler -- my first of the autumn, and, much to my driver's chagrin, a splendid Dabchick this last Sunday.

Fair play!

My unfortunate affliction, and the fact I've been unable to skive off and hit the patch at will while everyone else is at work, means I have no doubt missed legions of migrants passing through this autumn. Despite the hardship, the slim pickings that have turned up take the tally to a respectable 103.15% as we enter the final stretch.

Game on!

Desperate times...

 I got a message from the boss to update the Blog, but if only there was something worth updating.

With the three patch ticks in September: Sooty shear, red-breasted berg and a yellow-browed. And a meagre total of five: barnacle goose, jack snipe, redwing, missile thrush and goldcrest in October, the patch total creeps up to 120 species and 98.63%.

Alas, time is running out but with a bit of effort and a following wind there's still potential to sneak past the 100% mark before the year is out.

Happy days

Bushveld 

Overdue but under performing

 Boghall has been quiet since May. And I mean that as the birds have been absent. Snipe and a few common migrants are about it. This means we are at 89.5% with 77 species. Desperate.

Hotting up for the podium spots!

 Yes indeedy - moving swiftly on, nothing to see at skwinse anyway but LOTS to see at Galley! A mid-pm scan of the lake produced first an incredulous male pochard, and then as the scan continued, a noteworthy male wigeon and a kingfisher, before finally alighting on a frankly outrageous black-necked grebe! My first on patch since 2009 and my 5th wan evah!

Marvellous!

Proof-of-life evidence as follows:

A black-necked grebe, earlier

And some more

A pochard, earlier

Either way, it was absolute scenes on the Majik Patio (tm)!

In other news, Reg has been kind of banging them in up at Collieston, although he did rather over-dramatically announce that it had been an "Awful birding autumn for me ( literally worst I can remember!)" before admitting that he'd also only just got his first Great Northern of the year....

All to play for then, for those podium places....

Seppy's Scrutineering gets out of hand

 

It's all lies (admits Sepp Blatter, on any date you'd care to nominate).

 

In a shocking (but perhaps not surprising) turn of events, Seppy stooped to an all new low in October when he hijacked a draft post by an honest and rule-abiding participant in this esteemed competition and manipulated it to his own ends.

This post (for it was this very missive) was about to highlight Seppy's illicit and unscrupulous conduct as he shifted the metaphorical goalposts mid season, altering targets and massaging statistics in a most unsportsmanlike fashion to suit his own nefarious ends. 

What did the self-appointed Adjudicator General's meddling consist of, I hear you cry? He unilaterally decreed that the yearly average for Squince this season be recalculated northward, dropping the first year's estimated patch total and basing the target on just a 2-year rolling average.

OUTRAGEOUS!

The reason for this spontaneous mid-season recalibration? It seems he was finding it too hard to keep up. Net result: my target for 100% rose by almost two whole species, from 125.33 or some such to 127.

So where does that leave us? Down, indeed, but not quite out... yet.

Despite a busted ankle (which made scouring the patch nigh impossible over the entire autumn), Yellow-browed Warbler was a welcome addition to the year-list over the last month. Add the Gadwall and a flock of fly-over Skylarks from Sunday and my new (artificially suppressed) percentile has tottered up to 102.36%. So still in front... just, despite Seppy's cheating.

Roll on the Ducks, Gulls and Waders. Yippeeeeeee!

On-patch twitching

 Yes indeedy, sometimes the luck falls to others and all you can do is twitch stuff found by other people on your patch. Ah well - it made for a fun day on Sunday anyway with some great birds on patch! I'd been out since early doors, taking advantage of the extra hour but hadn't really seen much other than a handful of blackcaps and a few chiffchaffs. 

I was just nearly done checking the last bits of the patch when I got the news of a pallas's warbler in Dirk. Old spoons had reckoned he'd had a brief glimpse of one on Weds so this wasn't entirely unexpected but when I got there it had vanished once again. Whilst talking to the finder, he suddenly pointed and said "Isn't that a red-breasted flycatcher up there?!?"

And it was...

A red-breasted flycatcher, yesterday

After a while, we managed to get on the pallas's warbler, even getting some validatory evidence...

ooooof, boooom etc

The theme has continued right up to this very am, when I received a text message alerting me to the presence of a female/imm surf scoter on Long Strand. Indeed and it was even visible from the Majik Patio (tm), meaning not only a FULL FAT PATCH TICK but also a "from the garden" tick - result!

Alas, the record shot leaves a little to be desired...

A surf scoter, yesterday - 229 for Galley!

I even went and brought Basil and his gammy leg over to the Majik Patio (tm) so he could validate it this afternoon. With a bit of luck it might get in with the 9 common scoter that are knocking around and hang about into the new year....