Thursday, 14 March 2013

The Safari had a good half hour on Patch 2 this morning before we had to go and attend to our chores/appointments. 
The sea was a bit calmer than it has been of late but most of the Common Scoters were a long way out, in excess of 2000 of them by the looks of it, now they were more countable. We tried to find yesterday's small flock of Scaup that had been seen an hour or so after we'd left. No success but we did find a male Wigeon (P2 #47) with the scoters. Beyond the first line of scoters a flock of 13, mainly male, Eiders chased about. Two others flew south together and we also had two singles going north.
A Red Throated Diver was seen flying north at great range.
These Common Scoters were at least 3/4 mile away taken with the 2.2x extender lens.

Back at Base Camp we watched nothing happening on the feeders so put the stealth-cam up and let that do the watching while we got on with what we had to do.
Whilst faffing around upstairs we happened to glance out of the window to see a Lesser Black Backed Gull (Garden #27).
Much later we looked at the stealth-cam only to find it hadn't seen a thing! But when Wifey arrived back home and we were putting the kettle on four Goldfinches and two Greenfinches turned up for a quick snack before going to roost.
Where to next? Back to Patch 2 but it might well be raining too heavily to get out - hope not - certainly too cloudy tonight to be able to see the comet.
In the meantime let us know what's at the limits of photographic range in your outback.

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