Sunday August 23 - Do I feel lucky?

 Yesterday I had a nose bleed. After stemming the flow I noticed I had bled onto my shirt, my lucky shirt. Also on my jeans, but they have no pedigree. 

So this morning I switched to my other lucky shirt, latterly considered to be an unlucky shirt. I drove the ten minutes to the patch. On arrival I discovered I had forgotten my phone, and as I don't like to leave Lyn with no way to contact me and I was early anyway, I returned home. As I pulled onto the drive I discovered it had been in my coat pocket, where I never put it! So that was twenty minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Back at the patch I warned Dave that we would be seeing nothing today. The weather suggested we had a chance, relatively calm and mostly cloudy. 

Hope arrived in the form of three Whinchats in the chat field. 

A smart Whinchat

A scruffy Whinchat

Shortly afterwards another bit of luck came our way. A Yellowhammer flew in and seemed to land in a hedge. A few years ago I might not even have been motivated enough to pick up my bins, but the species is now lost to the patch except for a few winter birds. This was the first since February. Unfortunately I couldn't see where it was calling from, and it took off before I got a proper view.

We did not have high expectations of the flash field, and as predicted the water-level was still too high for waders beyond a couple of Green Sandpipers and 23 Lapwings. On the other hand two Shovelers were swimming around the furthest flash, the first for a while. Other ducks present were 14 Teal and 94 Mallard. Two Kingfishers briefly appeared, chasing each other around. Probably the first time I have seen two here. 

The rest of the morning was busy. Plenty of finches, most of the expected warblers, and generally decent numbers of birds.

Luck plays a massive part in bird finding, and we may have used all ours on being in the right place at the right time when the Marsh Harrier flew through a couple of weeks ago.

Twitching on the other hand takes determination and effort. Half an hour after I got home I got a call from Dave. There's a Greenish Warbler in Staffordshire. He didn't know where (wrong Bird Guides tariff), but I made a quick enquiry and discovered it was at Cuckoo Bank, Heath Hayes. Should we go? Twenty years ago I'd have been out of the house like a shot, but these days I agonise. I don't know the place. How much can I be bothered? Which shirt should I wear?

Two hours later I'm still here.