01 May 2011

It's a new dawn, it's a new day

International Dawn Chorus Day weaved its magic again - woke to heavy showers and a stiff north-easterly. As a result, the assembled avian choir at Uskmouth was a little subdued and lacking in range and repertoire. The eight bankable warblers did just about enough to see us through but there were one or two notable absentees, e.g. Grasshopper Warbler,... and Robin (!?). The best birds were all non-singers: a Marsh Harrier hunting over the reedbeds, a few Whimbrel and a reasonable flock of Barwits on the foreshore plus a flurry of Swifts over the car park. Near the end of the walk news came through that the indefatigable Weekendbirder had refound the White Stork at the delightful Newhouse Industrial Estate (see here for photos and more,... at some point in the near future). Naturally, it had snuck off by the time three of us had made the dash along the M4/M48. The slightly garbled news from the previous day may suggest the bird is hanging around the Mathern/Chepstow area; question is, is it worth traipsing around 'between the bridges' or would high tide at Goldcliff prove more fruitful in the great scheme of things?

PS. Did get Garden Warbler and Yellow Wagtail at Newhouse so not a total waste of unleaded petroleum.

[NB. This blogpost was written to the strains of Nina Simone and powered by buckets of Clipper Organic Everyday Tea.]

[JW. I have now run out of abbreviations denoting additional lines of inconsequential text,... so (singing) why don't you just switch off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead?]

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