21 October 2008

So nearly a blank

Spent interminable hours in Fogo and Ponte today and got the square root of bugger all for my effort. Did hear Hermit Thrush singing at one point, which caused me to scale an 8 foot dry-stone wall and scramble up an earthen bank at breakneck speed only to be met by an apologetic French face clutching an MP3 player. Also heard a quiet, disyllabic, downward inflected call, bit like Bullfinch but not so plaintive - God knows what it was. It was not unlike some Catharus calls only very weak, probably another distant playback experiment or I have walked away from a mega (let's hope the former).

After dipping on the Yellowthroats it was fast looking like consecutive blank days on Corvo until, in the gloaming, Pierre pulled out a Hudsonian Whimbrel on the airfield. The bird then flew a short distance to join two of it's European counterparts on the nearby rocks as shown below, I won't patronise you by pointing out which is which (on these views the giveaway is the stronger heard pattern).

No comments: