Absenteeism

Jeez, been a bit slack with my attendance on here! Still, had a slow trickle of year ticks since I last posted, including such finery as tystie, sooty, stormie, baleary, ringoey, & common sandy. So that sees me safely back in front of Old Hadders and Senor Kostco but still sadly lagging behind Mr Bushey.

Still and all, can't grumble, with ace views of a fantastic summer male Mongolian Sandplover  on the weekend - have a pic!

Lovely job, Ted!

Loxia love

Friday saw the addition of crossbill to the year list for the patch, with 9 birds flying over the garden during breakfast. Maybe these were the birds that i had on Saturday further out into the patch proper. Or maybe not.That and house martin (overlooked from adding to the list earlier in the year) bring me to within 1 species on 100%. What will it be????

It's good to have a hobby

I was walking up to my car with a large piece of boat on my head on Sunday when I heard alarm calling. It was a hobby trying to harvest some of the village's swallow crop. I didn't even have time to drop the boat part on my foot, let alone find some binoculars before it swept off north. This was a full fat patch tick, which always goes down well. Add to that a whimbrel heard from the house (hot weather = windows open).

Summer madness

While not up to the standard of the recent run of UK rares, my garden had its own spell of summer madness on Monday evening. And since my garden is the start of my patch, they all count. First up was a ghostly barn owl floating past at the back of the garden – not a patch tick but new for the year and a quality bird. But headline spot goes to a twee wee wee night flying common sandpiper that flew over within 10 minutes. Oddly, this was predicted as a possible species by Seppy a couple of years ago. Way to go Seppy, and since you predicted quail and common sand correctly, perhaps you would like to make a few more predictions for the coming seasons. Cracking patching for sure, all from the comfort of my own decking. 95.95%, approaching the ton.

The Proclaimers (hot)