Sunday, 6 December 2015

Sunday December 6

If you didn't catch it, buy the box set. What am I talking about? It's my favourite TV series, The Detectorists, which came to a close this week after a fantastic second series. This funny, moving series about metal-detectorists may seem to have no relevance to birding at Morton Bagot, but I would beg to differ.

The reason I love it, is that you could easily substitute metal-detectorists for patch birders. Lance and Andy cover their local fields looking for gold, but find only metal ring-pulls and silver paper. They go to poorly attended bird detectorist club meetings, and have their own insider language.

Patch birding is just like this. Dave and I are Andy and Lance. Today was definitely a ring-pull day. It was cloudy, mild, and drizzle set in by 11.00am. The highlights were a distant Peregrine, 40 Lesser Redpolls, 85 Lapwings heading east, and a Tufted Duck.

One day we'll strike gold though!
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2 comments:

  1. Selling history10 December 2015 at 08:05

    Hello. If you would like a much closer view of a Peregrine, one has been sitting in the ploughed field behind my house for the last week. At least, he is there every morning when I take the dog for a walk and occasionally chases after a partridge put up by the dog. I live in Alcester Heath.
    Regards
    Caroline

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  2. Richard Harbird10 December 2015 at 10:34

    Hi Caroline, Thanks for the tip off. If I remember rightly, Ancestor Heath is adjacent to Cold Comfort Wood, the last place around here I saw Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers (about eight years ago). Suspect they are not there any more.

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