After going to see the Eastern-yellow Wagtail on the 7th January at Sedgeford in Norfolk, who would have believed what the future had in store for us all...... Covid 19!! I was just birding around my local patch, and nothing exciting was happening - I was just waiting for the spring to arrive. I did look in the garden every morning to see if the wintering Blackcap, which I first saw on the 11th February, was still coming to the feeders - which it was, and continued to do until the 1st April - a total of 50 days. The 23rd of March saw the whole country go in to lockdown. Excuse the pun, but it certainly clipped everybody's wings, with only essential travel allowed, meaning birding from the garden and just locally on my bike. It wasn't till the 17th May when I was able to visited my patch again. Most of the Spring migration had been missed due to the virus, but on the 10th June, I decided to go and have a look at a Red-necked Phalarope which the ranger at Watermead Country Park had found on King Lear lake; it wasn't a good evening, with a slight drizzle, but the bird was so confiding - down to a few feet at times! What a great bird to see so close up - and it was good to see some local birding mates - from a socially accepted distance, of course!
Red-necked Phalarope
Now we could travel even though social distancing was still in place ( and still is as I type this post, ) an Asian Desert Warbler had taken up residence on Lindisfarne also known as known as Holy Island up on the east coast of Northumberland, and so, on the 19th June, my wife and I took a pack-up and set off for the four and half hour drive up the A1, making sure we were there in good time so the tides were right to drive over the causeway, leaving time enough to see the bird and drive back across the causeway again. It was great to get out and see a really nice bird and also some different scenery -but talk about cutting it fine - the Warbler was seen in the afternoon that day but was never seen again, so really lucky. We celebrated with a scotch egg washed down with a cup of coffee from our flask.......How the other half live!!
Asian Desert Warbler
Our freedom was short-lived though, as unfortunately,on 1st July, Leicester went back into lockdown, and we live just inside of the boundary, so back to garden birding again!
As I'm typing this post, we've just heard that although some parts of Leicester are to remain in lockdown, we've had the restriction lifted from our area - so..... is the bearded vulture worth going for? - or ....... do I wait for the return of the Black-browed Albatross? Do you know what? I'm tempted to try for both if the chance arises!!
It's been nice to have something to post on my blog again.
As always, thanks for stopping by..... and please, stay safe everybody.
