Hot migrant action at last

Finally unblocked the first of JLI’s early season migrants yesterday, more by chance than by design – a speculative scan out of the kitchen window came good when a Lard Dove laboured past looking fat and plumptious. The 2009 house list advances like a very slow thing indeed.
No sign yet of the Greenfinch I know is [...]

Sublime and ridiculous

Saw my first Red Grouse of the year this morning, miles apart from one another, but strangely both wandering alongside the main road while the morning traffic thundered by inches away. Reminded me of that sure sign of Spring down south, the sight of freshly splatted male Pheasants every mile or so on the M20 [...]

Spring’s here

Nothing terribly remarkable to blog about, but two ‘firsts’ for 2009 are notable – last night was a fine, still, damp sort of a darkness, and a Snipe was making the most of it to do a bit of drumming. I think of all the bird noises we get up here that I didn’t used [...]

What larks

Spent an enjoyable hour this morning trying to make sense of a paper examining the mDNA profiles of Skylarks… and it shook my world, I can tell you. Or at least, the bits of it I could understand were profound and earth-shattering. (NB, for profound and earth-shattering, read “only of any interest if you spent [...]

Not quite Scilly

Am delighted to highlight this well-written and amusing blog (and doubtless plagiarise it shamelessly in future) as not only is it proof that even I can enjoy gulls (in moderation), it’s also a dead good read.
Based down in Seaton in Devon, GH sees all sorts of exotica I can only dream of. To quote the [...]

Bean there, done that

In which Bitter Bonxie emerges blearily from his winter hibernation, shakes the taste of stale Kittiwake from his beak, and resumes normal service…
 Welcome back. It’s been ages since I last bothered to write anything on here. That’s probably for the best, as there’s only so much comic potential to be wrought from tales of unsuccessful [...]