Fortune Favours the Bold?

If you want to incite a fool to folly, try saying 'Fortune Favours the Bold' with enthusiastically raised eyebrows, a big, cheery grin, and a double thumbs-up. And watch them plunge out into the torrential downpour of a late-November dawn.

Well, I did give it a good try...

View from the West Bay shelter at 08:30 yesterday. It was as gloomy as it looks.

A strong SSE and constant, driving rain made for grim conditions, though the West Bay shelter lives up to its name pretty well in such weather. It was barely light when I arrived at 07:30, but already gulls were moving from their at-sea roost, heading east into the wind, many coming in over the prom. At least 75 Med Gulls featured, which was nice. Visibility was so dire that the scope was largely redundant, and binoculars were all I needed. At 07:48 a small wader twiddled its way east, close in, and I am fairly sure it was a Grey Phalarope, but there was no way I could nail it in such thick gloom. That was the first of three single waders: a Dunlin next, then a probable Purple Sand, but I got on it late and it was out of view in seconds. A Brent Goose and 6 Common Scoters were the paltry highlights otherwise. No Little Auks. No Little Gulls. Sigh...

My hunch was slightly vindicated by the appearance of at least a couple of Little Auks in Devon and a few in Kent, and a sprinkling of Little Gulls here and there. Ah well...

I had another go in the afternoon, but birds were few and my heart wasn't in it. Bird of the day was actually on the river, not the sea...

Goosander. A really nice bird to get locally, and the first I've seen on the 'deck'. On the face of it a female, but...

...with closer views it was obviously a young bird - the pale stripe twixt bill and eye makes it a bird of the year. Not only that, but...

...in good light there is enough moult in evidence to identify it as a young male: lots of pale feathering coming through on the flanks, plus dark speckling on the head (especially where it meets the white neck) and some dark scapulars appearing too.

I do hope it sticks around. The almost ethereal, pale apricot glow of a drake Goosander on a cold winter's evening is a sight to behold...

So that's yesterday done. Except for one thing...

The 2023 Patchwork Challenge.

I've dabbled previously with Patchwork Challenge - most recently in 2016 - but for a variety of reasons never really took to it, running out of steam well before the year's end. Possibly I will do so again, but I shall give it a try at least - its ethos does fit nicely with my current desire to stay a bit more local these days. I recall struggling with a feeling of constraint imposed by having rigidly-defined boundaries, but hope to minimise or even avoid that by having two patches to play with, rather than just one..

So, there's a coastal honeypot - with the possibility of exciting finds, decent seawatching etc - and a separate 'home' patch. My rationale for choosing the latter is the green behaviours I hope it will encourage. On the Bridport North patch I shall limit myself to walking or cycling only. Or sitting idly in a garden chair, sipping wine and listening carefully for noc-mig waders. Actually, the lockdowns of 2020 revealed the potential of garden birding here, with fly-over Cuckoo, Greylags, and Fulmar (twice!) plus Nightjar, Barn Owl and Whimbrel all heard after dark.

With that on the horizon, and the Bridport Bird Club's winter House Sparrow Roost project (which I plan to make a start on this afternoon) I sense the continuation of a process which has steadily been reshaping my birding aims and objectives in recent years. And I like the way it's going...