It's 5am on Sunday morning and I'm standing at Fiddlers Elbow in the damp mist waiting to be picked up by Phil for a day trip to Weymouth and Portland. 10 past and the phone goes off, who's slept in? No sign of Mr Bevan. Phil is trying to reach him. 20 minutes later and the phone goes again, Bevan has surfaced, Phil will pick me up and then we'll pick up sleepy head. So about an hour later than planned, we set of for the south coast.
The rest of the journey went without hitch until we reached the outskirts of Weymouth, to find that a triathlon was taking place that morning and a number of roads would be closed. We hoped access to Lodmoor would be OK. Alas not, the triathlon was based at Lodmoor. We eventually managed to park in Weymouth, about a kilometer from Lodmoor, and wandered through the crowd to the RSPB reserve, hoping that the Least Sandpiper had the decency to stay put for another day.
Fortunately it didn't take long to catch up with this micro wader - a British tick for all three of us - ably put onto the bird by Kevin Hughes, who had managed to beat us down (he didn't have to wait for anyone else to drag themselves out of their pit). Unfortunately the Stilt Sand' had decided to hop it the previous day.
a poor record shot of the peep
From Lodmoor we headed over to Portland, to see what, if anything, was passing through. The short answer - nothing! so we joined Kevin waiting for the long staying Wryneck to put in an appearance in the Obs quarry. After about 20 mins I picked the bird up as it hunted through the long grass and we all enjoyed good views for some time before we decided to leave it be.
From there we walked over to Southwell to try for the Hoopoe that's been hanging around for a while. It took a while, and we just making moves to leave, when it popped up onto a bare snag, a nice year tick for myself and the second this year for both Martin and Phil.
If the start of the journey was delayed, the delays on the return trip started as we approached the bridge tolls. We did, however, find out why Bevan slept in as his alarm went off at 4pm - clearly he was still in Cuba time.
The rest of the journey went without hitch until we reached the outskirts of Weymouth, to find that a triathlon was taking place that morning and a number of roads would be closed. We hoped access to Lodmoor would be OK. Alas not, the triathlon was based at Lodmoor. We eventually managed to park in Weymouth, about a kilometer from Lodmoor, and wandered through the crowd to the RSPB reserve, hoping that the Least Sandpiper had the decency to stay put for another day.
Fortunately it didn't take long to catch up with this micro wader - a British tick for all three of us - ably put onto the bird by Kevin Hughes, who had managed to beat us down (he didn't have to wait for anyone else to drag themselves out of their pit). Unfortunately the Stilt Sand' had decided to hop it the previous day.
From Lodmoor we headed over to Portland, to see what, if anything, was passing through. The short answer - nothing! so we joined Kevin waiting for the long staying Wryneck to put in an appearance in the Obs quarry. After about 20 mins I picked the bird up as it hunted through the long grass and we all enjoyed good views for some time before we decided to leave it be.
From there we walked over to Southwell to try for the Hoopoe that's been hanging around for a while. It took a while, and we just making moves to leave, when it popped up onto a bare snag, a nice year tick for myself and the second this year for both Martin and Phil.
If the start of the journey was delayed, the delays on the return trip started as we approached the bridge tolls. We did, however, find out why Bevan slept in as his alarm went off at 4pm - clearly he was still in Cuba time.
Great day martin and a cracking sleep.
ReplyDeleteChurchill is your new nickname, you were nodding like a good un in the car on the way home.
ReplyDelete