The Perils of Solo Birding

It's no secret that I like birding alone. Not really because I'm an unsociable so-and-so, but rather that I can one-hundred-percent do my own thing. If I want to pop over there for a quick look, or linger by this field, or sit down and watch that hedge for twenty minutes, I can. Without worrying that a companion is going to be bored out of their boots. However, birding alone has its drawbacks. And one of them is that you have nobody to bounce ideas off and discuss things with.

When you bird alone, you have to identify all your own stuff. All of it. Bird identification is sometimes easy of course, so no problem, but frequently it is not. And if you are busily making some fundamental ID error, who is going to sort you out? No one. You will carry on down that blind alley and make a splendidly royal cock-up. And it's not until you post a photo on Twitter, and someone goes 'Er...mate...I think that's actually a [insert really common bird]' that you find out what a heartless prankster your brain is. That's a worst case scenario of course, but your devious grey matter has plenty of other tricks up its sleeve...

Today I had a bit of a moment.

I'm walking along the Burton Road, which lies just behind the beach at East Bexington, heading towards Abbotsbury. I notice a bird flying towards me above the road, but get on it a bit late, when it's almost overhead. I'd already decided it was a falcon, and was expecting Kestrel, but my bins reveal heavily streaked underparts. Very heavily streaked; in lines basically. My brain starts to play games. I didn't see the head, and now, as it goes away, I am struggling. Initially I'd thought Kestrel, but with those underparts obviously it can't be... And now it dips low enough to briefly show me the upperparts. They appear uniformly dark brown. It keeps going. A few flaps, a glide, no hurry. And is gone...

My brain is shuffling the options. Okay, heavily streaked underparts, so Hobby, yes? But you got that Kestrel vibe, right? Mmmm, so why not Red-footed Falcon? Dark brown uppers, so why not a juv? No colour on the vent area, was there? No. Well, there you go then! Can't rule it out, can you?

A birding companion would have nipped all this nonsense right in the bud...

'Wicked! Gav, see that Hobby?! Brilliant!'

With hindsight I realise it was a Hobby, but at the time I felt a bit bad about seeing yet another one. That makes four Hobbies in five visits to the East/West Bex area, and even I can see how stringy that sounds. What can I say?

Here's another photo of Sunday's West Bex bird, somewhat butchered, digitally speaking, in order to show some detail...

The streaky underparts and colourless vent area are what I saw today. Probably the same bloomin' bird

Anyway, I will continue to bird alone, and try not to string too often...