A strange thing occurred the other day. Following an enjoyable evening listening to Mr Garner's inspiring talk on the frontiers of gull i.d the mega alert revealed the presence of a Slaty-backed Gull in Essex (near that there London). Most of you probably don't need telling this, some of you might even have gone for it. Anyhow I digress. For the first time in my birding life I failed to get the urge. It must be the same feeling you get when you suddenly realise that you got up to make a cup of tea before the adverts during Hollyoaks! So a Slaty-backed Gull in the beautiful south and I can't be arsed, is it the end of my twitching days? Possibly. Fortunately (at least for me) It failed to show over the weekend - though any birder worth his salt (even one's like me) must have thought a gull favouring a tip would be a Saturday/Sunday no show. Those very sentiments probably hint that I've got a few years in me yet.
Some nice shots of the crowd on
Mark Thomas's blog, though to be honest it looked like the set of Birding Prison Break. I'm glad I passed on this one.
Ironically whilst the fun in Essex was occuring I was enjoying a festival of gulls at Orgreave. It would appear that for the last week (at least) a decent gull roost has been building up. By the time I left at 4:30 at least 2,000 Black-heads were roosting with a steady build up of large gulls. Perhaps we'll get our own Slaty-backed, though a Glauc' would do!
2 comments:
It's only 32 miles from me and I had a severe case of couldn't be arsed as well. I did however have a nice walk with the kids and as a bonus added Pochard and Coot to a nearby tetrad as roving records - get in!
Now where's me pipe and slippers!!
just thought i would let you know the hare coarser back at orgreave[jan 20] informed police after watching his dogs chase 2 hares
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