Kind of an apt name for a niche, often fruitless birding activity...
...but that is what I found myself doing with Steve on Sunday morning. Predictably, we didn't see or hear any, but enjoyed a pleasant morning nonetheless. The Firecrest at Swiss Gardens (found by Pip) still hurts a little...especially as we had walked past the spot 30 minutes previously, and I had commented ''this looks a great spot for a Firecrest'' at precisely the spot where it was later found. I guess if we hadn't been bimbling and talking about babies, we might have found it ourselves. No hard feelings though - such a great, showy bird that I went back twice to see it yesterday.
My only weekend SFYT was Oystercatcher, with one at DWE Pits and a pair at Warren Villas, which will not exactly worry my fellow competitors...I'm told I could have claimed the seventh Shelduck which has appeared at Broom, but with birds having been seen there since New Year's Day and six until recently, for me to claim the seventh as self-found would be cheeky in the extreme.
Spent Monday with John O'Sullivan (thought I should go out with a proper birder to aid my quest for self-found stuff), but didn't find anything. Thought I'd found a Scaup at Brogborough, but have now realised I saw several there on January 13th, so I can't have that either.
Ho-hum...
DOM
STOP PRESS: RIB and SCB told me this lunchtime that I can have the 7th and 8th Shelduck at Broom - they are the rules people are playing by....so that, plus a Green Sandpiper at DWE Pits today takes me on to 97 (93 zero carbon).
ReplyDeleteEDIT EDIT: I still feel a bit of a fraud ticking the Broom SU's as self-found, so I was mightily relieved to find my own at a new site this morning: a single bird at Stratton Park Balancing Lake (and a zero-carbon tick too).
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