Rainy-Day Writing

It is raining right now, and I'm in my little man cave listening to the pitter-patter on the roof. In a way the sound of rain is pleasant when you're all snuggly-warm and curled up indoors, but right now I'm not getting that vibe. Quite the opposite...

The coronavirus lockdown scenario gets to me sometimes. In selfish moments it's easy to focus on the things I miss. Driving to my favourite birding spots and mooching about at will. Touching gate latches with my bare hands, not for a moment concerned they might be smeared with deadly things. Seawatching. Yes, seawatching. Sitting on my fat backside, hunched over my scope, disgusted that yet another promising wind has produced just five Gannets and a Guillemot.

And then I remember that my family is all well. Because of Covid-19, other people are missing things far less trivial. Uncles, aunts, mums, husbands, children...

Publishing regular NQS posts has been a nice distraction from life's realities, so apologies for the gloomy start to this one. Clearly I need to avoid rainy-day writing just now.

Proper seawatching may be out of the question, but I can easily walk to the sea, and occasionally do. I pass hardly anyone en route, and realise I am extremely fortunate to have it so accessible. Mostly I've done this walk very early in the morning, but yesterday went in the afternoon. Some photographic highlights...

Distant Wheatears on a wall. Standard views!

Wheatears have been a feature of my spring this year. Perhaps the feature. They are seemingly the only migrant evident in any numbers (14 or 15 yesterday) and can be extremely photogenic.

Quite close Wheatear on a wall. Not standard views!

This next one was my favourite yesterday. Never close, but a right character. Don't think I've ever seen a bird stand so rigidly upright that it looks in danger of falling over backwards! Plumage not 'rusty' enough to label as classic Greenland type, but who knows?

Straight after this little stunner I finally caught up with a bird which I have seen as a brief 'probable' twice so far this spring, and can at last label 'definite'...

Hobby. Not hanging about.

I'm not sure how far away that Hobby was, but some 2-300m at least I would guess. It was slightly bigger than a dot. At 800mm equivalent zoom, it took about four attempts before the camera would lock on to it, and when it did I fired off a single burst of seven frames. Here's the original image size...

I think the camera did pretty well to manage in-focus shots of something so small and distant and rapid. Again, it illustrates how useful it might be if I'm ever presented with a somewhat rarer fly-by one day.

A walk is not all birds of course. There is simple fresh air, and scenery, and creaky knees. In addition, there are other creatures...

Handsome Roe buck in tolerant mood. Briefly.

I am aware of butterflies, hoverflies and other small things when I'm out and about, but am rarely actively looking for them (plants even less). So when it comes to getting noticed, I'm afraid the onus is on them. Like this beetle, which was so blatently in-your-face that even I couldn't miss it...

Thanks to helpful folk on Twitter I now know this is an Alder Leaf Beetle Agelastica alni. Google tells me it is a recent colonist. My eyes tell me it is an unbelievably shiny blue.

Well, I did reach the sea yesterday, and four Whimbrel flew past, very close in. The light was awful, but the resulting image I nevertheless find quite appealing...

Slightly 'arty' Whimbrel photo

The rain has stopped now, so I ought to cheer up a bit. But before I do, here's something which made me want to weep...

A few days ago there was a 'slurry spill' at a farm close to the Coly Valley, not far from where I used to live in Seaton. The little stream into which this unfortunate 'spill' discharged flows into the River Coly, which in turn flows into the River Axe. According to the scant reportage of this calamitous event, 'hundreds' of fish were killed. That'll be the tip of the iceberg...

Spill. Interesting word. Oops, I've spilled some red wine! It's made a terrible mark on my blandly neutral carpet! Never mind, I'll Google how to remedy that.

Or...

Oops, I've spilled many, many tonnes of liquid raw sewage into a fragile and already-beleaguered ecosystem! Never mind, I'll...er...I'll...er...

Most of the farming round here is dairy. I'm not going to make any comment about that, but I will say this. I have loved rivers since, as a small boy, I was made aware of the wonderful creatures they contain. Not just the fish, but everything, big and small. And throughout my life I've seen them suffer. I know there are happy stories out there, but mainly with rivers it is a tale of gloom, neglect and criminal apathy. It makes me very sad.

Sorry about that, dear readers, but writing this post was for some strange reason a necessity.