Discoraging Weather

I don’t think anyone reading this will disagree with the above statement besides its clear (and obviously topical) misspell. Of course those who are sad enough to know that Anas discors is the Latin for a certain little American duck called a Blue-winged Teal. But more on such punable tomfoolery in circa 2.364 paragraphs.

This past few days have been a mixed bag of sun, rain, cloud, wind, tornados, pseudo-tropical semi-occluded manicdepressions and the continuation of relatively mild temperatures. However the leaf fall has definately accelerated (caused by wind and stuff), thus rendering passerine action minimal.

However this mixed bag has allowed hardcore birding and guilt free lazing in equal measure and sorties into the small bad world have produced some notable highlights. The most passively interesting was the Whinchat next to my garden last Sunday which is only about 2 months behind schedule and was thoroughly inspected to eliminate any possibility the Asian form Saxicola karma rubetra.

Whinchat action.

After this brief nugget of phenological asynchrony the day was spent planting 120  Norway Spruce and salivating at the wholly unlikely possibility of churring Nightjars, singing Nightingale and Pine Hawk Moth. However news of a Blue-winged Teal down at Porthellick had me and some non-birder mates heading down for a twitch or, as it turned out, a dip.

Luckily this mini Shoveler-Teal style American dabbler was still about the next day when I called in as it grunted a few times and swam across the pool into impenetrable reed. Classic discors.

Blue-winged Teal. Vagrant. Standard.

Luckily this mini Shoveler-Teal style American dabbler was still about the next day when I called in as it grunted a few times and swam across the pool into impenetrable reed. Classic discors.

Pseudsobirds around Marys have produced little else really, a brief sound then sight of the Northern Waterthrush in the Dump Clump was tantilizing while up to 2 Woodcock, Peregrine, Buzzard, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Goldcrest have been the only garden highlights while moth traps are still producing the likes of Pearly Underwing, Dark Sword-grass, White-speck all crazy to be migrating north still and I suspect the strong NW winds that have set in will put pay to any further Lepidopteral interests.

The islands have been hit by some pretty beefy winds and intermittent rain the past week or so courtesy of some Atlantic low pressure sprinters (which actually hit further north) so having blown away/killed most birds that are already here lets hope it brings something that’s totally lost. We’ll treat it good.