Sunday 9 February 2014

Frustration Galore!

I spoke too soon about my improvement last week.  Fierce stomach pains have returned as have Doctors and I have been confined to home for the last few days and the foreseeable future.  I am due to see a consultant in Carmarthen next Thursday.  Thoughts, dreams etc of birds have kept me sane but all I have seen in the garden apart from the residents is a super Treecreeper climbing up a cherry tree outside my bedroom window.

Treecreeper


Talking of dreams like many people I have longed to see a Ross's Gull.  This diminutive and attractive species rarely wanders from its Arctic home and when it does I am rarely in the right place.  I once twitched one to Holland but arrived too late.  Another time I was in Holland when another was found at Cley but returned to late for that one too.  Again after I moved to Wales one was found briefly in Lowestoft Harbour.  I seemed destined never to see this species.  But now the astute Mark Hipkin has found one in nearby Glamorgan.  Will it winter?  Will I recover enough to try and see it?  I have no idea but that little bird will be much on my mind in coming days.

1 comment:

  1. I was lucky to have made it to Churchill, Manitoba while the birds still nested there. I took the train up from Winnipeg. You leave in the evening and get to Churchill on the second morning. As we got off the train an adult Ross' Gull was flying overhead. We saw several adults on our 6 day stay that June.

    The other bird I saw was a winter bird in Gloucester, Mass. It came to a pond every evening with 300 Bonapart's Gulls.

    Good luck, Derek!

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