Wintery Y-Fronts

 Yes indeedy - things have fairly slowed up recently at Galley, but there's still time for a couple more scores before year end I reckon. Jam of the day involved me being out with the dog at just the right time to spy 4 white-fronted geese fly over the beach, heading towards the lake. No further sign when I got home so maybe they went straight through. All geese are rare here, and this was only my third evah record on patch after a single bird in 2018 and a flock of 5 in 2020. Score!

Monday pm update

A second look at the lake this very pm paid off in the form of a gadwall in amongst the mallard - now on 148 for the year, my second highest score evah and shurely its possible to finally break the mythical 150 species in a single year??

Kent pub updates

 Yes indeedy, continuing our popular "Finders in the Fridge" series, this week we catch up with Kent's finest, Shakey, who takes us through last weekend's birding action, where he was hoping to connect with at least one of the seven-striped sprites that have been invading the UK east coast over the last week....

A pint, yesterday

This dedicated approach to birding er drinking probably goes a long way to explaining quite how Shakey is so far behind everyone else this year. All still to play for though - it is still only November...

Live updates

 As it happens action from Boghall - golden plover goes over the try line to score. 84. Only the second time this species has scored on our patch, and a welcome one it is.

Reg offered a meagre response by bangin' in long-tailed tits (patch mega) and a late lesser whitethroat during the week but its all beginning to look like too little too late. Although he is just two away from equalling his best ever score of 172 species, which is great news as every additional species makes it all the harder for him next year!

Another lamer out on patch yesterday was none other than Basil Faulty who moaned and whinged his way round his "beyond shite" patch and still managed to add peregrine for the year. The good news is he's still below Bushveld in second last so happy days!

All still to play for, apart from the golden mallard and new old snowy!

Humdrum Bumblings

 There's a good reason why I haven't posted for a while, basically nothing to report.  A very brief overnight spell of south-easterlies (the only ones this autumn) did bring in a scattering of migrants including a rather natty Firecrest, a very good bird for around here and a full fat patch tick.  Along with a few expected warblers and some woodcock that spell produced seven patch ticks for the year.  A snow bunt' yesterday was a more regular migrant but as alway rather nice

Earlier in the month a white goose in amongst the pinkies turned out to be a snow goose, again a full fat patch tick and my patch bird of the year.  

Aside from the goose and the crest there's nothing much to report except that I have at last scraped past the 90% threshold and so now have a total to show that I have at least been trying this year, if not with much success. 

Currently on 116 species and 91.82%.

Happy Days

Bushveld 

Bit soft lad

 Yes indeedy, its hard to know where to start really. I'd been up on Galley for a morning seawatch and had 10 great shearwaters and 125 sooty shearwaters through in 1.5 hrs. Conditions did look good but I had some brown envelopes needing opened so I bailed and headed home. 

A mere 45 minutes later I got a call that a soft-plumaged petrel had just gone west past Seven Heads (approx. 15km east of Galley). Panic ensued and I changed my trousers (obscure Whalsay reference). Grabbing scope and bins I drove back up to Galley but was worried I wouldn't have enough time to walk out to the seawatch spot. I opted to stop at the "bad bend" and scan from there. Unbeknownst to me, Old Spoons had reached a similar conclusion and was up the lighthouse road a bit. A quick call confirmed our locations.

We waited. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. 40 minutes - how long could it take for it to cover 15 km? My phone rang. "I have it" stated Old Spoons, and I tried hard to fight rising panic that I could easily miss the bird. Eventually I got on a "Fea's-type" with bold black underwings and ridiculously white underparts - "I'm on it" I stammered into the phone, and continued watching as it swung about in the wind, shearing and zipping around. It was hard to stay on it, but I could see that the tail was dark grey, similar in colour to the mantle and wings, and those underparts were so striking. Old Spoons was at a better angle and managed to see the complete breast band, also seen on the bird as it had past Seven Heads.

All too soon, I had a last view as it disappeared west around the rocks at Galley Head, and it was all over. I was shaking for the rest of the day.

Swan, swan, Morusbird, hurrah

The break back with a full fat patcher from Reg raised the stakes so we went for it and tried a seawatch from our beloved hills. Good news came in the form of gannet and moot schwan. Handily both big white birds that do stand out. It took a while but there's enough gannets in the Forth still. This means a whole 83 species (where Reg was in about May I think), or 109.69%. Snow bunting and teal are still outside chances as although teal used to be a regular bird sadly one teal pond was drained and the other is overgrown. Whathappens next is up to you!

Itchy and Scratchy

 Yes indeedy, everyone's favourite cartoon frenemies were at it again over le weekend as the tussle for third place continues to ebb and flow. First to blow his trumpet on Saturday was Royzah, who after bangin' in a woodcock was finally compelled to declare that his score (including that snow bunting from the other week) was now 99.76%. However his elation was swiftly crushed by Seppy, whose third-place score was already nestling on 99.77% - just 0.01% ahead!

Fast forward to sunday am, and after a failed attempt to bag two very distant long-tailed ducks that were approximately 3km off patch, Seppy was only delighted to stumble into two (count 'em) greenfinches on his way home, just a stone's throw from his gaff! A scarce bird in these parts these days, and one that was looking less and less likely to occur as the autumn progressed. And so Seppy is the third contender this year to break the near-mythical 100% barrier, equalling his 3rd best-ever finish score of 145 species, and there's still two months of the competition to go!

Probly still only one species separating these two goons though - who will be the next to score?