After last week this one was always going to be a tad turgid, not that there weren't good birds, just not enough and not different. The Wryneck stayed till Monday, a Pied Flycatcher put in a brief appearance on Thursday and today Dan turned my Garden Warbler into a Reed Warbler. Spotted Flycatcher have been hard to find, due in no small part to the truly grim weather, which a few weeks ago brought in megas: now just wetness. Numbers of Spotty have been down this year in my reckoning, way down for Redstart, and where are all the Wheatear - I don't think we've reached double figures yet.
It was so dull yesterday I even went to the park. That was so dull I won't be going back in a hurry. Or maybe tomorrow when Dan finds some rare duck blown in by the Atlantic storm already throwing the tops of the trees around and which curtailed any effort today.
The one remaining spotty was sheltering on the lee-ward side of the Hawthorn in the Alex scrub doing nicely on a diet of wasps. A hazardous diet I would have thought, somewhat akin to eating broken glass. I know nothing of how a wasp stings but it must be a conscious thing and so presumably once they have had the life squeezed and knocked out of them the sting becomes useless. Dogs take note, eating live wasps is stupid!
Anyway after eating a shed load of large chitinous insects the inevitable needs to be done...
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