Hawfinch

Yesterday was one of those days, pretty rubbish, could have done without it, should have stayed in bed and not bothered, could have skipped it, a dumpster of a day. And this morning did not begin well, woke at 4.30 a.m. and could not get back to sleep.

Cycled to work, doing that a bit at the moment, necessity (having only one functional vehicle of three) but a pleasure indeed although it was a cutting breeze. Six Fieldfare and a gang of Woodpigeons on the way were of note. A decent enough day at the work place as well, and eventually waved cheerio to colleagues as the holiday began.

Garage phoned me back as I got in and another working vehicle is on the horizon, that was optimistic. Came off the phone, glanced out of the window and this fella was under the feeders.

Hawfinch

So bad day - very good day. And even better playing this from the post:

Elder daughter and I enjoyed this very much, it got played a number of times over the evening, some surprising (in a good way) distorted guitar on the title track - however, Nashville warning for those who don't appreciate the genre.

And whilst I'm on about other stuff I especially like this:

(These - how I was feeling yesterday, and This is just to say and To waken an old lady, are probably my favourites.) This series of Penguin Modern at £1 a go is worth exploring, fifty titles, lots to enjoy.

Post at last

Lots of these guys still about, the one at the top was with five friends at the very smelly corpse of the Cuvier's Beaked Whale this last weekend.

The whale corpse has been here for some time.

Star bird of this last weekend was a patch tick (although I have a feeling I have seen them from the patch in the past by staring purposefully at the very distant (10 Klicks) Clestrain Sound. An adult wandering about in the road on the very perimeter, I leapt out of the car to try and catch it but it fled into a garden and I gave up. Oh, yes! A Shag.

The newly discovered Raven roost is quite impressive, well I haven't found the roost exactly but I can count them heading there, 133 at the count the previous weekend.

I need to back-fill the blog with posts, somehow it all slipped due to a variety of circumstances involving snow, vehicles, cold, more snow, stuck in Glasgow family, and of course work. Oh, and writing bits for the bird report and the Field Club.