Well I'd decided to go see the sun go down on the river last night... start at the Car Park on Lapwing Lane and walk the quarry by Lapwing Lake in the hope of picking up the recently reported Garden Warbler, walk the path alongside Shipton's Meadow, pop out by the Ethylene Station and walk the rest of the way alongside the MSC. High tide was at 1:30 am and I was curious to 'see' what the roosting birds did as it came in... IF there were any roosting birds. Plan THEN, was to backtrack along the MSC and take the zig-zag route through Upper Moss Side to the White House and back past the Snipe Fields to the car in the hope of picking up an owl or two. It started well...
By the time I'd spent a few minutes at Colin's Seat and made my way to the Quarry path, I'd picked up six warbler species (alas NOT the Garden Warbler), a couple of new species for the year list (Linnet and Green Sandpiper) and a surprise Raven cronking overhead. Always like to get these on the patch...still my favourite bird sound of all time (followed by Common Buzzard, Swift, Grasshopper Warbler and Corncrake - each, I guess to his or her own, eh). So the quarry was nice, lots calling and flying overhead (see trip list at end), strewn with bumble-licking willowherbs, splashed with summer evening sun and barely the ear-pricking whinny of a horsefly anywhere. All was going well...
Got to Bob's Bridge and headed off down the path alongside Shipton's Meadow. Well I guess I should have taken the bodes as unwell when I had to round the steep bank by the bridge and climb THROUGH the metal fence to even get on the path as the entrance was that overgrown. Foolish, foolish me. Why? Because I got it into my head that this was nothing more than a chest high, brambly, thistly, nettley blip and that I'd soon break through onto the path at which point the dory, would as the saying goes, indeed be hunky. Not so! Thirty minutes later, scratched and stung if not to buggery then at least to bugg, I'd had enough. As heavy drops of rain added to the atmosphere it was, I decided, time to bite the bullet, hang a sharp right, thrash through the worst of it, DOWN the bank, over the ditch, UP the other bank and into the far end of Shipton's Meadow itself. Clear. Rain smelled good, but not enough to cool the sweat I'd worked up fighting the vegetation (talk about plant defence mechanisms...think I experienced most the patch had to offer in those thirty minutes if my legs today are anything to go by).
Well the field beyond the meadow was waist high in grass and the pond there too hidden to see and so I decided to head over the gate near the farm and straight to Balloon Hut Field. Why I continue to think I'll see Little Owl there when I know that Stock Dove's have taken over the nest box is a mystery to me, but I do it every time. Time. Time? What IS the time?? Quick check on phone... correction, quick check FOR phone reveals that somewhere amid the jungle of vegetation I'd just yomped through, I'd lost it !!! I think the appropriate text (irony) would read 'O...M...F...G...' Nothing for it but to yomp BACK through the same vegetation in the vain hope that somebody might ring the bloody thing just as I was passing by and that I'd be able to locate it among the tangle of bastard plants. Of course nobody did and I didn't find it. So maybe that's my patch legacy done with. A fossilising HTC, somewhere at the east end... ah well. Try again tonight. No, not for the phone... pfff. Sunset on the river! Perspective people, perspective...
So here's what I got last night... I'm quite interested actually as I've not totted it up until now:
Little Grebe, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose (~20), Mute Swan, Mallard, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Common Buzzard (3), Kestrel (2), Pheasant, Moorehen...see what I did there ;) Coot, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Green Sandpiper (north east corner Lapwing Lake), Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Stock Dove, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Swift, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Swallow, Sand Martin, Wren, Robin, Dunnock, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Blackbird, Blackcap, Common Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Bleu Tit (yes, it WAS French, could tell by the accent...), Great Tit (it was f**king HUGE), Willow Tit (OK...out of idiocy...yes, it can actually happen any cynics out there), Magpie, Jay, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Raven, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer... what's that... hang on... 53 species.
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