Sunday 11 October 2009

Non-Birding Day

I had family round yesterday evening for a buffet and a few drinks and a few more drinks and a few more drinks! I knew that unless the weather forecast was absolutely spot on, whatever that is, it would be a non-birding day for me today. And it was, almost.

A lie in and then it was a trip to Lancaster to take some provisions to one of my lads at uni there, but on the way I called at my feeding station on Rawcliffe Moss to give the Tree Sparrows some food. The food from two days previous had been scoffed and the reason why was probably the fact that numbers of Tree Sparrow had increased to 83. Amongst the Tree Sparrows were a handful of Chaffinch and single Reed Bunting.

It was literally a sprint down the track and back to my car, but I did manage to log a Peregrine as well as a few Snipe and Skylarks. It's been a day or two since I have posted some pics from my good mate Nigel so below are Northern Parula and Orange-crowned Warbler.



I have continued to label my notebooks and the danger of delving into them for you are lots of birding tales of 'way back when' to send you asleep!

In the mid-1980s I had a spell of living in Norfolk for about 3 years and I moved from Lancashire to Norfolk just for the birding. I lived in Snettisham at first and then later in Kings Lynn. I had a cracking three years and some stonking birding sites on my door step. One of the sites that I used to ring at was Snettisham Coastal Park, an area of coastal scrub on the eastern side of the Wash; in fact a stone's throw away from the RSPB's Snettisham Pits Reserve. If you have ever been to this reserve you will know that when you walk to the RSPB reserve you park at the car park of the coastal park.

On the 11th October 1986 I was ringing at the Coastal Park but I didn't catch anything exciting but I remember bumping into a couple of members of the public that day who asked what I was doing and more interestingly gave me their opinions of what they thought I was doing before they spoke to me! One guy thought that my mist net poles were aerials for receiving radio transmissions and that I was a an amateur radio enthusiast and another bloke thought the nets were for collecting Blackberries! He thought I pulled a lever and my my nets dropped onto the brambles and lifted the Blackberries off! If only he knew what a devastating combination brambles and mist nets are for the mist nets!

It's back to work for me tomorrow but I will try to get out in the week if I can!

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