I had been decorating and gardening now none stop for nearly a month. Shustoke has been as dead as a nit and I am getting fed up already at the dark nights – just five months to go! Then on Friday news broke of a Orphean Warbler in South Wales about three miles from where the Captain and I had gone a month ago for an Issy Wheatear. I knew it was a long drive and to be honest didn’t fancy it much.
My darling wife – Joy took pity on me. On Saturday, after painting my second door and rushing to find time to watch the Rugby, Joy say’s “lets go, I have never been there – and you said it was nice.” I don’t need asking twice! Anyway, first thing Sunday we are off. We get 20 miles down the motorway and its closed! Someone was threatening to jump of a Motorway bridge. I was fuming, he’d tried to jump off yesterday, don’t these people sleep! 24 hours!!!! They could have put a mattress under the lane he was above and left the other bloody lanes open!
Great Start!!!!!
We eventually got back on the M5 after a bloody long detour eventually arriving in Marloes/St Brides, Pembrokeshire at about 11.15 we found the birders car park easily. I was confident that the bird would still be present, it had been dull overnight and I never dip in Wales, it will happen one day, but not yet. Plus more importantly Captain Daylate wasn’t with me!
We walked about half a mile to the nice looking house which had a garden birders dream of. We only waited five minutes before the bird appeared. It performed for a while before disappearing only to reappear in the apple trees in front of us. I must say that I didn’t think the bird loooked that big, but is hard to be objective. I’m no expert but if I had to guess I thought it looked more like Eastern Orphean Warbler, it seemed greyer to me. I also could not pick up white in the outer tail feathers but it did appear on some of the photographs I have seen. It did have a stonking bill on it though.
After viewing the bird for an hour we headed off to Dale Airfield, I had met a local birder who gave me directions. We got there and made our way along the runway where a Snow Bunting was performing really well. From there we headed across a grassy area between the runways and put up around four Lapland Bunting. This was the first time in a few years that I have seen this species and I really enjoyed it, not only that I managed to photograph the bird.
So just after 3pm we headed home, fortunately the Motorway was open! He must have dropped-off!!!
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| Western Orphean Warbler? St Brides, Pembrokeshire |
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| Snow Bunting, Dale Airport, Pembrokeshire |
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