pushing it

Out again this morning, and at first there didn't seem to be much new about. The whinchat, whitethroat and a spotted flycatcher were still knocking about, but Dirk was still quiet (still far too much cover in there to be sure though!), and the top fields held nothing new. At least 3 reed warblers were in the reeds in Marsh Lane, but things didn't really heat up till I noticed a pale bird sitting on a distant hedge. I really couldn't get very much on it with just bins, but thought it could be an ortolan bunting. I rattled off a couple of super-zoomed (and super-bad) record shots, and headed back down Marsh Lane to get a better look. Arriving at the crop, I was walking up the side of the dike, when the bird booted out, flying up and around, calling a soft "pit, pit" all the time. As it started to descend over the other side of the valley, I pleaded "don't drop into the enormous kale field", whereupon it dropped into the enormous kale field - bollocks!


I hoofed up there (took a while), having alerted PC, but by the time I got up there, he'd seen it flying around back over Marsh Lane, apparently landing in a different stubble field. No further sign, but having checked the camera, I'm happy it was an ortolan (129) - see below:












It was very distant! Hopefully it'll get pinned down somewhere over the next couple of days - fingers crossed!

 The day's excitement was far from over though - news of an possible ruddy shelduck at Kilkeran Lake was nearly enough to make me drop all ortolan efforts, but better than that (as I've already had 1 on-patch), it turned out to be an egyptian goose - gen bird, obviously! Finally, I was sitting at the table, trying to catch up on updating corkbirdnews when I saw a bird on the telegraph wire at the bottom of the garden. I so nearly didn't check it, but something made me pick up the bins and lordy, another wryneck! Luckily the scope was already up (for the goose!) so gave it a good grilling before it flew off - house tick!