16th July. Can't Believe It's Not Better

Successfully managed an early morning circuit of Orgreave every morning for the last week with a couple of evening visits thrown in for good measure. Not a great deal of new stuff but a steady build up of Lesser Black-backed Gulls pulled in the first Yellow-legged Gull, an adult on the 13th. Coincidentally the same date as the first (also an adult) last year - creatures of habit?

Other than that it's been pretty dull - hopefully things will get better over the next few weeks.

"or you'll have someones eye out"

I often got told off as a child, but one of the things that stuck in my mind was that if I waved things about in the air I would have someones eye out. This usually referred to rubber bands, blades of grass and sticks with dog shit on the end! Nowhere did my parents warn me of the dangers of messing about with injured birds.

It would seem that no one else was warned about the danger of birds either - particularly those with big stabby beaks - after some bloke lost sight in one eye from a dying Gannet. I'm sure that when he went to pick it up he was more concerned about the animals welfare than his own and to be fair probably didn't think that the bird had the strength to lift its head let alone lunge at him.

So it fills me with despair and not a great deal of surprise that another human being - admittedly at the lowest end of the evolutionary scale - would make a comment, on a popular forum like this; "Anyone who picks up a bird with a bloody big, sharp beak and doesn't think "I'm going to get a good grip on that bugger" deserves all that happens to them." and this "I love how you are all acting like it was you who had your eye pecked out. Its an eye the guy isn't gonna have difficulties in day to day activities and its not like I'm calling him a w**ker he just should have been more cautious and before any of you say, I do have a missing body part so I know it isn't a big deal." No prizes for guessing which missing body part!

Poor chap I hope he isn't filled with as much hatred as some of the pond life on Bird Forum!!