 |
Common Snipe
|
I guess it's fair to say that we have had a streek of bad luck recently resulting in no birding whatsoever over the past three weeks. We discovered that my wife’s favourite horse has a major heart issue and is now unrideable and my Weimaraner, Loki, had an accident resulting in a nasty wound on his tail. After five weeks and two courses of antibiotics due to infections the wound has failed to heal and we have very reluctantly agreed with the vet that he should have his tail amputated. We now have 2 weeks of wrapping him up in cotton wool and watching him like a hawk to make sure the resulting stitches stay put and it all heals. He is a very energetic and friendly dog so to try and keep him calm he’s on tranquillisers for the first week!
Just to add to the fun both our land rover discoveries have broken down on the road some distance from home and have been recovered by Green Flag. Although my wives comparatively new Disco 5 had very low mileage it has been a reliability nightmare with one issue after another. The last breakdown was due to a failed steering column and, in true land rover form, you can’t just replace the steering column you also have to have a new control box resulting in a cost of £4.5K! We decided it was time to get rid of the car and so did a deal with the local land rover garage and replaced in with a new polo GTI run around which Carolyn is very pleased with.
Prior to Loki’s operation I tried to get a day’s birding in and headed towards Frampton RSPB. Two hours out I went to turn at a T junction and the car completely died blocking the road. As it’s an automatic it defaulted to park and hence could not be pushed. With the kind help of two local farmers and a phone call to one of their mates we worked out how to get it out of park and pushed it into a layby. Green Flag contacted a local garage and after an hour of so a young lad arrived who had a look in the bonnet but said it would have to be recovered! Cue another 3 hour wait and 2 hour uncomfortable journey in the back of the pickup truck. The next day I called my local land rover garage who very kindly sent their electrician out to my house. Within a few minutes he had diagnosed the fault, the main earth strap had failed, apparently it’s a well know land rover problem as they “rot’ over a period of a few years. He attached a jump lead from the batteries negative terminal to the earth and the car immediately started! It was fixed permanently at their garage that morning. What a throughly frustrating and wasted day that was! Now, it seems to me at least, herein lies the issue with recovery companies using local subcontractors. Fixing the car on site would have been easy, i.e. cheap, recovering the car would be expensive so which would the local garage prefer I wonder?
Loki was in for his operation on Monday and Carolyn suggested I pop out to do some birding while he was in to take my mind off things so I visited a very hot and sunny Slimbridge. The combination of nice weather at long last and the tail end of the school summer holidays meant that it was teeming with families with small children but the hides were surprisingly quiet. In front of the Rushy hide a Green Sandpiper and a rather tatty looking moulting Ruff were feeding and I rattled off a few photos. From the hides further along the path I looked for a Wood Sandpiper which had been reported earlier but, with the exception of another Green Sandpiper it was a bird free zone. A pleasant slow stroll along the summer walkway also failed to yield a Redstart that had been reported earlier at the pill box.
 |
| Green Sandpiper |
 |
| Ruff |
After a spot of lunch I made my way to the Zeiss hide on the other side of the reserve where a Temminck’s Stint, a less than annual bird for me, had been reported. An interesting factoid about this Stint is that they have a most unusual, possibly unique, breeding habit. The male and female parents incubate separate clutches, typically in different locations. Males establish small territories and mate with a female who lays a first clutch of eggs. She then moves to a second territory and mate and lays a second clutch that she incubates herself. Concurrently, her first male may mate with an incoming second female, who lays her second clutch on his territory. The male thereafter incubates his first mate's first clutch alone! As per usual at the Zeiss hide, the Stint was very distant but I rattled off a few record shots before making my way back to the Rushy hide for one last look. A Common Snipe was right in front of the hide and, somewhat unusually, it had waded out into quite deep water where it spent some time preening in the pleasantly warm late summer sun. I left at 15:00 and a phone call on the way home said that Loki was ready to be picked up. The next two weeks are likely to be birding free as I look after him until he has recovered.
 |
| Spot the Stint! |
 |
Here he is!
|
 |
When you have an itch you really know you shouldn't scratch but you just can't help yourself!
|
Footnote - My blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
Comments
Post a Comment