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Monday 18 May 2009

Recently I Have Been Mostly...

...missing year ticks! And as I'm year listing that is the wrong thing to do!

I don't work earlies any more (starting at 6am), apart from a one-off last Saturday. Last Saturday was also the first day of decent sea watching weather for ages! Not long after my working day began I was gripped with news of two Pom Skuas past. I thought that would be it, but a few hours later a text that simply read "Cory's west 09:40" made me want to lock myself in the freezer back up! Gripping!!! But a SUPERB record for the patch, and am so pleased it was sighted elsewhere.

I sea watched Sunday morning, but it was rubbish so I packed it in just after 7am. Just after midday I hear from Dawlish that they'd had some skuas passing from mid to late morning. So at 13:00 I go back and did a two hour stint. It was better, plenty of Manxies and Gannets, 18 Kitts, a few auks, six Sandwich Terns, but no skuas and no year ticks! Sunday night I helped lead a Devon Wildlife Trust group around Axmouth. Ten minutes in and I learn that I've missed another Pom. Grrrreat! I did see two summer plumaged Turnstones on the estuary though which were nice.

This morning, I thought the best way to make sure I miss out any more Poms would be to go ringing. So I did, Colyford Common with the Axe Estuary Ringing Group. I did indeed miss another Pom, one flew west just after half nine. Ringing was ok though, we caught three summer migrants. Two of which were these....

A Chiffchaff - and my hand!

And the third one was this....

A Swallow - but not my hand!!

To make sure I continue to miss all and any patch year ticks I'm going to Plymouth shortly, and won't be back til late morning tomorrow. Tomorrow's going to be a good one, I will put money on that!!

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