Frustrations

This morning's walk at Cogden followed neatly in the theme set by almost every other birding effort in the last week or so: frustration. My eye was drawn to some movement on the outside of a sallow clump. Two Chiffs probably. The first bird quickly showed well. Yep, Chiff. Then the second bird emerged. Ooh, hello! That's got to be a Sibe Chiff! Not close, but it had that lovely pallid look. Absolutely bang on for tristis. It stayed in view long enough to let me extract the camera and zoom in, and then, just as I tweaked the focus to perfection...gone! I didn't see where it went, and never saw it again. Massively unsatisfying. I almost left it as a 'probable' but I'm sure it was one, and in view of the week's other frustrations I'm having it! Today's bird is the first local Sibe Chiff I've seen somewhere other than a sewage works, so a pretty cool record actually.

The morning tally was 21 Chiffs, 3 Blackcaps, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a heard-only Ringed Plover. Plenty of hirundines and other passage overhead kept things lively, but nothing of special note caught my eye or ear.

Admittedly, yesterday morning's Cogden visit was frustration free. Standard fare in the shape of 23 Chiffs, 2 Blackcaps and 3 Wheatears was spiced up by the appearance of my third Firecrest of the autumn, as well as a Peregrine and 4 Jays. Jays seem conspicuous right now, and these four were clearly on the move together.

Peregrine silhouetted on the crown of the beach.

I never tire of these. Firecrest, mostly in shadow but its head catching the early-morning sun.

Back to Sunday now...

Very blowy. Seawatching was the obvious option. A morning effort produced 2 Arctic Skuas, 9 Balearic Shearwaters, 14 Common Scoters and 24 Med Gulls. Sounds pretty good, right? Except all the quality birds were way too far out to enjoy properly. Oh, and even further out was the tantalising shape of a large shearwater sp. that lifted above the horizon time and time again as it sheared its way purposefully east, way beyond my reach. I could do absolutely nothing with it. Frustration.

By late afternoon it was blowing a SSE hoolie and tanking down. I supposed little would actually be on the move in this but tried anyway, hoping for something storm-driven. On my radar were Leach's Petrel and Grey Phalarope. Limited visibility made the scope superfluous I reckoned, and so left it in the car. Unbelievably my first scan with bins revealed a small, dark-winged bird fluttering in a trough, struggling to make headway against the wind. Surprisingly not a Leach's, but size-wise pretty close. The penny dropped. A Black Tern, surely? It was a bit distant, and close to the edge of the murk, and I cursed myself for leaving the scope in the car. Desperate measures then - what about a bit of video? By the time I had the camera ready it had vanished.

So it went down as 'probable Black Tern' which is basically the same as saying 'bird I can't count' and a complete waste of typing effort. I haven't seen a local Black Tern since 2008. Yep, rocking horse poo.

Anyway, the rest of the seawatch was notable only for the spectacularly rough and empty sea. Four Ringed Plovers whisked in like leaves in a gale and sought shelter on the beach in front of me. There was very little of it to shelter on, just a strip of shingle below the sea wall. By standing on the seat and leaning forward as far as I dared, I could just about see one of them...

Bedraggled Ringed Plover sheltering on the West Bay shingle. The fuzzy blur at the bottom of the frame is the top edge of the sea wall.

Close to high tide in a SSE gale. Leach's Petrel by the red post would have been nice. It's happened before.

Yep, it was very rough.

By Monday morning the wind was forecast to swing to the west. It did, and was predictably rubbish. I did try, but 9 Common Scoters, 2 Common/Arctic Terns and a single Kittiwake was pitiful really. Still, a night of heavy rain had left the field behind Rise Restaurant very soggy, and there were some gulls. I decided to give them fifteen minutes. One scan revealed the complete absence of anything interesting, and I spent the next 14 minutes hoping something might drop in. Not much did, and I collapsed my scope. One final scan...

Hello, what's this? A very striking, white-headed gull with two obvious wing-bars and beautifully Casp-ish coverts had just arrived. Scope up, and...

It immediately flew to the small flock nearby, right at the back of them. Almost hidden...

Object of interest.

The gull deserves a post of its own, and will get one. All I can say is: a load more frustration.