Welcome to my new blog, based loosely on birding around Merseyside, and loads of other stuff besides ...
Thought it'd be nice to start off with a bang, and what better way than a scoot down the A55 to gawp in awe at the sooty tern doing the business at Cemlyn Lagoons on Anglesey.
Taking care to avoid Mr Brunstrom's finest (I stayed within the speed limit all the way, officer), I was able to leave work after an early shift, taz down the North Wales coast and be skidding onto the pebbled car park at Cemlyn in gorgeous summer sunshine by 4.30pm yesterday.
I'd have been there quicker if someone hadn't bent my passenger side mirror back to get out of the car park - thanks for that, always fun to discover your visibility is severely limited on a motorway 'cos someone couldn't be bothered with a bit of courtesy (ie putting the bloody mirror back).
A small group of birders in the distance suggested the superstar sooty, the first getable one in Britain since the mid '80s, was still around so I marched down the storm beach with hopes high and common and arctic terns calling above me.
The sooty tern was hard to see at first, as it spent much of its time asleep in the vegetation of tern island, occasionally showing a bit of head pattern, bill or long primaries above the cover, but eventually it took to the air.
When it did it stuck out llike a sore thumb - a black scythe-winged beauty in a blizzard of gleaming white sandwich, arctic and common terns (no, I didn't see any roseates).
Once warmed up, it performed admirably - hovering, robbing a juvenile sandwich tern of food, zooming about all over the place and it even called above me - "ker wacky wack" it went, like a demented child's toy.
I 'scoped the bird for about 45 mins before heading away from the beautiful blue waters of Cemlyn _ the adrenaline of racing to find the rarity now replaced by a warm glow of happiness as I pootled back across Anglesey in the evening sun.
The Snowdon range looked superb, and I even dug out a Hebridean gaelic music CD to get into the mood (I know, it should be Celtic music there, but it was either that or "Fat Of The Land" by the Prodigy, and that didn't seem quite right for the moment).
As I headed home as traffic warning sign flashed "Caution, animals on the carriageway" - something of a harsh critique of the good folk of Llanfairfechan and Llandudno I thought, they've always seemed perfectly hospitably to me, but then it could have been an old warning.
I resisted the temptation to check the Aber valley for wood warbler and pied flycatcher, or Halkyn for the Lady A's Pheasant - are they still there?
And are they still fed at the back door of the big house?
All seemed right with the world - if only everyone went twitching, the world would be a better place - come on Osama, go for the sooty, I know Cemlyn is a long way from a cave in Afghanistan, but the bird is worth the trip ... and George B, you may be the most powerful man in the world, but surely things would be a bit better if you learnt the difference between American and Pacific Golden Plover....
If you want to read more of this stuff (and I know I can't make you,) don't miss my Country Matters column every Saturday in the Liverpool Daily Post, and you can email me on john.dempsey@liverpool.com
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies!
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit