With night creeping into day again, for those of us up and out with the lark (or I would be if you could hear any above the noise of the modern world), the twilight driving conditions means I'm back in roadkill territory again.
The dual carriageway at 5.30am is littered with rabbits and hedgehogs, some alive, some deader than Elvis, and this attracts magpies (between 27 and 30 yesterday), and insomniac jackdaws.
Worst of all as I whizz down the road is the sight of lesser black backed gulls and herring gulls feeding on the corpses - they always fly last of all and I remember the effect of hitting an LBB at speed on a night twitch to the Ythan estuary only too well a few years back.
The gull was flipped over in the air currents surrounding my twitch mobile (the legendary "Black Death" - now sadly consigned to the scrap yard, and replaced by the more environmentally friendly "Baby Black Death") and smacked into the windscreen at about 70mph.
It made a surprisingly loud noise.
Surprisingly the glass stayed intact, but it certainly woke up Neill Hunt, who thought he was going to be pinned to the passenger headrest by the LBB's beak.
Woodpigeons usually get out of the way on my early day commute, but they can have their moments too - roll on the darker mornings (and migration) of autumn, when my driving is distracted only by barn owls and the odd nocturnal kestrel.
In the wider world, can I recommend The Wandering Birders website - two young twitchers who have started chronicling their trips around the country in search of the rare and spectacular, excellent stuff!
Until the next time - eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies!
PS - contact me at john.dempsey@liverpool.com, and don't miss my column in the Liverpool Daily Post each Saturday!
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