Sunny but ffffffreezin

The Safari was better prepared this morning after yesterday’s short but nightmarish session in the fridge...and we didn’t bother with Ice Station Zebra! Today we made sure we wrapped up warm. 

Our Patch 1 visit was another short one but long enough to see there were no Peregrines on the tower, could be that now it is coming light when we venture out that it/they have already flown the coop.

A Dunnock nearly deafened us when it started to sing from the depths of a path-side Juniper bush.

Forewarned is forearmed and we put plenty of layers on, and the woolly hat before traipsing across the road to Patch 2. The wind coming off the sea was eye-wateringly cold but at least the visibility was good for a change.

The tide was well up but it was well choppy in the stiff breeze. A crackin male Eider was soon located bouncing around on the waves not far away and it looked like the ‘normal’ number of Common Scoters were still stretched out from horizon to horizon but they were impossible to count in the conditions. Another male Eider was found a little further away, then we had a pair fly south and soon after that two pairs flew north. A scan to the far north revealed three more males with a female also going north in the distance – 12in all, not bad. Bird of the session though was the male Scaup (P2 #43) that flew in an arc over the heads  of a largish flock of scoters just off the sand dunes to the south.

The tide was well out by lunchtime, we find it somewhat scary that the tide is caused by the solid earth spinning beneath the bulge of water pulled up by the Moon’s gravity. 

Scariness was compounded over the weekend when a group of local ghost ‘hunters’ visited work in the dead of night in search of our spook. What’s sort of worrying is they found not one but three ‘ghosts’ here; two were called John apparently but weirdly they got one of the John’s professions right without knowing it. But who are the other John and the third spirit???

Back on track after that bizarre tangent - Patch 2 at lunchtime was still sunny and still cold. Two male and two female Eiders were seen close inshore and the usual Common Scoters buzzed about. On the beach a good number of gulls eagerly waited for the waves to bring them something worth gobbling up and by the look of it the waves weren’t disappointing them. Only a single Great Black Back was of note though.

We tried a bit of digiscoping using the old 30 quid mini camera through the handheld scope – not ideal – shoulda took the ‘proper’ camera and associated kit out.

 Tiring work all this lying down m'larky!

Where to next? Think we'll take the big camera out on Patch 2 tomorrow - might even put the wellies on and descend on to the sands!

In the meantime let us know what's taking a breather in your outback.