17th March. The Strife of Brian

It’s that time of year again when I can grab a precious twenty minute, or so, birding spell before work takes over.So once again I have been paying regular visits to Orgreave usually arriving around 7am. This has several benefits one of which is that I’m usually the first on site and that the birds are all mine. Not this week though. I arrived yesterday and noticed the obvious silhouette of a birder – you know the one we make when we lift our bins’ to our eyes. Filled with dismay I decided to stick it out as from my vantage point I could keep ahead of the ‘intruder’ who for the benefit of this story we will call Brian – Brian Dead. Scanning the shore line I picked up three Ringed Plovers which Brian subsequently saw as he almost trod on them, as by now he had begun to walk right along the shore line in dog walker style though without a dog. Brian continued his walk along the shore seldom lifting his binoculars, except to follow the fleeting birds from under foot, until he came to a nice gathering of c.150 Black-headed Gulls with a handful of Commons among them, which he duly flushed. Brian was back again this morning but must have arrived early as he was already halfway round when I arrived at 7am. God knows what he’d already flushed but once again he managed to clear the Black-heads, in fact as he glanced at his watch his pace increased and he successfully managed to flush every bird off the lake including two Mute Swans – it takes a true pro to flush Mute Swans. Now before any one comments I must point out that I have on occasions accidentally flushed the gulls at this site and I have walked along the shore line – however in my defence when I walk along the shoreline I scan it as far as I can see and move well back so as not to cause disturbance. Brian sadly seems to be lacking in that all too rare skill seldom seen in birding these days called ‘field craft’ either that or he is blind and it is for his benefit that Rotherham Borough Council added the braille text at the bottom of this sign!
I doubt very much that Brian will read this. But in case he does it's nothing personal just take a little more care when walking round the edge of any birding hotspot*

*Technically Orgreave is far from a hotspot more slightly tepid!

Thanks to Rebecca Nason for awarding me this sunshine blog award.

Rebecca's Blog full of proper photographs can be found here