You'd think that after all these years I'd know better than to go out when it's freezing, blowing a gale and chucking it down. Trouble is, some of the best birds I've ever seen, or found, have been in such grizzly conditions... what's a birder to do? Get a dousing, suffer an hour, or several, and trust that one day it'll all be worth it when that real crippler pops up in front of your bins.
So, from my opening paragraph, you, dear reader, can assume that I saw buggar all this evening. Correct.
I headed to Holden Creek, soggy shorebirds on my mind. Unfortunately, it was even worse than yesterday and just 13
least sandpiper (pictured) and the regular
spotted sandpiper were present. It was utterly devoid of anything else, except a heron and a bunch of green-winged teal. Even the majority of the swallows were hiding. On the subject of swallows, I'm often taken aback by the difference in the colour of the underparts of North American
erythrogaster barn swallows, compared to
rustica ones - they're quite startling!
Still on the subject of swallows, I recently moved desks at work, and bagged a window - where I've been adding such stuff as bald eagle, turkey vulture, pigeon etc to my 'desk list'. Today I was rather delighted to see 8
purple martins heading right at me. Perked me up a bit.
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