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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Farnboro John" data-source="post: 2845500" data-attributes="member: 36432">Many years ago a good birding friend (and BFer) and I set off for the far north to see if we could find a Brunnich's Guillemot in the massive colonies along the top end of Scotland.After nearly a week and having looked carefully at many, many auks, we reached the ferry to Cape Wrath, to find that the Army Birdwatching Society had block-booked the ferry for the afternoon. The RAF Tornado force was bombing the living daylights out of Eilean nan Garbh with live thousand-pounders so we walked out onto Faraid Head for an afternoon of extreme entertainment of jets going whoosh and bombs going bang. Or is that boom?Anyway, as the tide came in the bay in front of us filled up with auks, we sighed and went back on the chain gang, scrutinising each one quickly and going on to the next - and the next - and the next - and the hang on just a minute. Is that a fish in your beak or are you just tomium striped? I concentrated hard - and the bird dived. When it came up the stripe was still there.With a good deal of tension vibrating from my vocal cords I suggested my companion should take a look through my scope. He was confronted as the bird rotated gently in the wavelets by a good view of a stripe along the bill and a sharply pointed white arrowhead leading up from the breast into the black neck. It was a summer-plumaged Brunnich's Guillemot and many beers were drunk that night.All because we were enjoying the jets!John</blockquote>

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