Terry Smith's Bird Update

A Dip and a Scottish trip

First of all, thanks for your encouraging comments Steven. I do tend to live a little in the past but petrol was cheap, there were nowhere near as many cars on the roads then and a car-full of birders kept the costs right down. However, I haven't yet been elevated to 'heavenly' status! Read you comment CAREFULLY!
Back to 1981, and January 10 saw four of us up early and down at Dawlish Warren in Devon. It was a perishing cold day, and we clambered up on to the top of Langstone Rock to try and see the bird we'd travelled for. Regrettably the bird could not be seen (a Surf Scoter) due to the distance of the scoter flock offshore. This, coupled with the fact that we nearly froze to death on our exposed perch, resulted in a dip. It was so cold in the wind, that we had to make frequent trips back to the car to consume massive quantities of hot drinks from our flasks. Once back out in the cold wind, the drinks had the opposite effect, and it became obvious that frequent trips to the TOILET (or some hidden bush somewhere) were a necessity! Up and down. Up and down. On and off the rock we went - more drinks to warm up, more visits to the wee-wee shop! In the end we gave up and retreated up the Exe estuary, where we had good views (and year-ticks!) of 2 Whooper Swans at the Swan's Nest inn (where else?) and Avocets. Earlier we had good views of some Cirl Buntings between the warren and Dawlish Town.
After completing our monthly wildfowl count at Chew Valley Lake on the 17th, 3 of us visited a place in Wiltshire called Bustard Hotel. But we did not get to grips with those beautiful creatures of the open grasslands, but did connect with a Great Grey Shrike, whose temporary abode on some MOD firing ranges, nearly ensured we were arrested TWICE - first by the MOD Plod, then by the extremely diligent Wiltshire Constabulary, who were most unimpressed with our reason for being there! However, we survived to bird another day, and on the night of 22/23 a minibus full of us travelled overnight to south-west Scotland where a veritable goose-fest awaited us.
Caerlaverock provided us with Greylag, Pink-feet and Barnacle Geese in massive numbers, and Purple Sandpipers were found at Southerness Point. However, it was on 24th that we had a truly memorable day. We were up early and were soon at Stranraer, where we covered Loch Ryan. Whilst partaking of some victuals at Cairn Ryan, we were lucky enough to see a drake King Eider which of course was another lifer for us. A little later we were at West Freugh airfield area which produced more huge numbers of geese, including Barnacle, Greylag and Greenland White-fronts, and best of all, a lovely white Snow Goose, which was our second tick of the day. We were also lucky enough to see 3 Hen Harriers coming in to roost that day, as well as Black Grouse and Black Guillemot for year-ticks. It was a cheerful party of birders that found itself in the local pub that night! The next day saw us leaving Kippford early and we were soon down as far as Leighton Moss in Lancashire, where we spent an excellent 5 hours, notching up Bittern and Goshawk for the year!
January ended up with another, this time successful trip to Dawlish Warren on the 31st, where we clawed back the drake Surf Scoter, despite nature's best efforts to prevent us from doing so, due to a blanket of fairly thick fog, which eventually lifted mid-morning to reveal the bird in with the large scoter flock.
Back up to date again, and I was lucky enough to discover a White-fronted Goose of the albifrons race at Bowling Green Marsh on Thursday. I checked out the marsh again the next day, but there was no sign of it. This isn't very surprising as this species is quite rare in this neck of the woods, so you can imagine my surprise, when just as I was leaving, a flock of 21 flew in and landed on the main pool! Well, that's it for now............