A holy satisfying day, as my spirits aRose
The message ‘about a duck’ arrived in timely fashion, as I was getting ready to go out. Instead of heading west in the car, I walked west, along the coast path. With the wind in my face and frequent driving rain, it wasn’t, at first, all that pleasant. However, a half hour later and a small flock of scoter was visible through the murk. A poor photo was the result.
An offer of a lift from much nearer the site than where my car was parked was accepted then, on reflection, declined- I had this ‘feeling’. It turned out to be the right thing to do, when a large pipit, displaying prominent white outer-tail feathers, flew up from the path, a couple of hundred yards west of the coastguards’ lookout on Skelding Hill.
Eventually, reasonable ‘scope views were obtained and the familiar call of Richard’s heard. At last, a large pipit on the ground this year. Mike S phoned out the news to a hotline; this took 17 minutes to appear on the pager.
It just didn’t stop ! I then had a ‘phone call about a Rosie Starling. It obviously aspired to a pastoral vocation (on its vacation)- as can be seen in the RH photo. These, owing to the poor light, were not of towering quality and, since it was a young bird, it wasn’t a rose-tinted spectacle.
I hadn’t yet got to Salthouse, so went that way, noticing that some kind of incident was occurring, with numbers of police & coastguard vehicles and a chopper in the air. It didn’t, however, prevent my twitching an announced Short-eared Owl from Gramboro’.