Poor but at least an addition to the patch list

The Safari once again couldn’t wait to get the scope out of the draw and head off over the road to the wall. With little change in the weather, milder but cloudier with the gentle offshore breeze continuing we needn’t have rushed again as our first couple of scans showed nothing different from the last couple of days.

The tide was well out but other than fishermen and bait diggers there wasn’t much on it. All the action was beyond our southern border where we could see hundreds of gulls and Oystercatchers along with the biggest numbers of small waders we’ve noticed all year some were likely to have been Dunlin amongst the hundreds of Sanderlings.

Just off shore a small shrimping boat plied up and down catching huge numbers of shrimps judging by what he was scooping out of his on-board boiler.  

Beyond the boat little stirred, there seemed to be about the same number of Common Scoters bobbing up and down in the gentle swell and we could only find one Great Crested Grebe and saw a distant Red Throated Diver coming out of the gloom towards us.

A new Patch 2 tick arrived in the shape of five Curlews (P2 #42) crossing the bay northwards a fair way out to sea.

With all that excitement we weren’t really looking forward to our lunchtime visit with our customary eagerness even though the tide would be high. And we were right not to have too many expectations. In the mild conditions we gave it a longer than usual scanning but the only thing of any note to be seen was a reasonably close, one of the closest we’ve ever seen, Red Throated Diver, probably just beyond the low water mark where the fishermen had been stood a few hours earlier.

Excitement barely contained we headed back indoors for a brew and the desk.

That’s yer lot for today, saved by the addition of Curlews to the mix – without them it would have been pretty dire. Although we did receive news from CB that the 1^st winter gull from last week’s jaunt down to see LC in Staffordshire is indeed a Caspian Gull (117) – happy happy happy.

Where to next? It’s the weekend and the safari could end up anywhere.

In the meantime let us know what the last minute saviour in your outback was.