“Un homme qui dort,…”

 
“When a man is asleep, he has in a circle around him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host.  Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth's surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks.  Suppose that, reclining in a ribeira, say, after a lunch of ham and cheese rolls, sleep descends upon him while he is staring up at the canopy: then the world will fall topsy-turvy from its orbit, his chosen cradle will carry him at full speed through time and space, and when he opens his eyes again he will imagine that he went to sleep months earlier and in some far distant country.  Not knowing where he is, he cannot be sure at first who he is; he has only the most rudimentary sense of existence, such as may lurk and flicker in the depths of an non-birder’s consciousness; he is more destitute of human qualities than the city banker; but then the memory, not yet of the place in which he is, but of various other places where he had birded, and might now very possibly be, would come like a rope let down from above to draw him up out of the abyss of not-being, from which he could never have escaped by himself: in a flash he would traverse landscapes formed over untold millennia, and out of a half-visualised succession of stone walls and vegetation, would put together by degrees the component parts of his ego.”

Marcel Proust (had he fallen asleep in Poço da Agua on 19th October 2015 whilst looking for yankee warblers)

Yep, another grey and rainy morning in Gwent,... how did you guess?


NB. Quotation marks may have been misused and abused in the production of this bog post. 

“Bloody hell there’s another pewee!”

Not a phrase you expect to hear whilst birding in the WP but Peter got to utter it as we walked back from obtaining video/recordings of the calls of the original bird at lunchtime today.  The second bird was every bit as vocal as the first making bagging a few more video clips/sound recordings easy-peasy-jack-n-squeezy.  

Our descent to the village was interrupted by news of Swainson’s Thrush back along the track to the Lighthouse Valley so we pootled along for that and then headed for coffee.

Just before dark news of a female Golden-winged Warbler soon became news of a Blue-winged x Golden-winged hybrid at Da Ponte.  During a few brief views, I managed to get one sharp(ish) shot of it (see below).   In addition to what you can see in the image (there should be much better available tomorrow), the bird has two strong yellow wing bars, grey lesser coverts, grey edges to the remiges (making for a largely grey closed wing), possibly a grey mantle (did I see this? Did I imagine it?), olive-green rump/back and a largely grey tail with a fair bit of white on the outer tail feathers.  From the limited amount of stuff to hand this evening, we're going with 1st-winter ‘Brewster’s Warbler’ type but it will be interesting to see it better tomorrow.

Hybrid wobbler at ISO 12,800

See previous posts for shiteness of photos during this trip. Pretty sure it is all Nikon Capture NX-D’s fault now, doesn’t paper to be applying the settings on export,… go figure?!  Try clicking on the image, p'raps that'll help.  I'll redo them all on my return,... if I can be arsed.  

Eastern Wood-Peewee

Saw the peewee *very* briefly seconds after Pierre found it,... three hours later, saw it properly; in the intervening period heard it calling but failed to identify it,... aaaargh, what a bloody doofus.

Cracking addition to the growing list of megas found in the Lighthouse Valley though.

ON MY AZORES LIST!!!

The falling rares

As Margaret Postgate-Cole might have said,...

They dropped from their western sky, in a still afternoon, when no wind bore them whirling on, but thickly, silently, they fell, like ashes wiping out the noon; and wandered exhausted thence, for thinking of a gallant multitude, which now all drownèd lay, slain by no wind of age or pestilence, but in their beauty strewed like snowflakes falling on the Atlantic waves.

Incredible on here today,... a minimum of 24 yank landbirds of 10 species dropped onto the fields around the village including: three Buff-bellied Pipit, American Robin, Gray-cheeked Thrush, seven Red-eyed Vireo, two Philadephia Vireo, Blue-winged Warbler, Ovenbird, three Scarlet Tanager, four Rose-breasted Grosbeak and two Indigo Bunting.  Gawd knows how many didn't make it to this tiny rocky outpost.

Veery still present in Fojo too.

Blue-winged Warbler. A gem. Quite a moment when this popped up out of the grass.

Ovenbird found on the back of a decaying, rust-ridden, pick-up just before dark. Perfect rare habitat.

Veery

The third first for the Azores of the trip, the first from the 'right' side of the pond.  Mind you, the RAW converter/Blogger interface is still doing it's level best to screw up my pics.

A Wood Warbler not a wood warbler

The Wood Warbler reappeared near the power station, rarest bird I have found this trip, knocks American Redstart into a cocked hat.  However, the big news of the day was bagging the Siskin, flew over moments before the above popped out.  Azores tick! 

Blocked

The westerlies are blocked by the easterlies, the Buff-breast was blocked by the White-rump and the American Goldie was blocked by a Starling.  I walked flipping miles today, including a not insignificant amount of ascent and descent,... for nothing but waders.  Buff-breast was an Azores tick mind.  Whoopee!

 Buff-breasted Sand with white-rumped interloper.

American Golden Plover with fame hungry Starling.

Still, my current RAW converter/Blogger is, or are in combination, doing something fupping weird to my pictures. Will update them on my return to the land of Photoshop,... for now,... squint.

PS. I assume y'all know, the 'official Azores bird news' is available here.

Azores acro

A morning of tip-tap, leaf twitching rain gave way to glorious blue bird less skies.  Bagged the Sedge Warbler at Poço da Agua then climbed up Pico and down through Da Ponte.  Had lunch at the reservoirs with the Buff-bellied Pipit, American Golden Plovers, Dotterel, Snow Buntings, etc., then down to the power station to check the Arctic Warbler site,... no Arctic Warbler.  Finally, a late wander around the village, nowt for me but Vincent pulled out an Indigo Bunting just before dark.

Two of the four White-rumped Sands tzeeting their way round and about.

Faaaaand a peanut, faaaaand a peanut,...

Found a American Redstart in the Lighthouse Valley, two American Golden Plovers between the reservoirs and the Tennessee Valley and another Corncrake in the Tennessee Valley.  Not a bad result for a slog round.

Record shot of the Yankstart, since the initial sighting(s) it has proved difficult to see and even harder to photograph.  Note the missing central tail feathers, made it look very odd in flight.  

PS. Does this picture look fuzzy?  Looks fine on my screen in the RAW converter but totally bollocksed in Blogger.  Gawd knows what is going on.   

I don't like cricket, oh no,...

Looks like this,... sounds like this.