Tuesday 18th October (Wind, Autumn and a Few Birds in Hiding)


Mr. Kite looked out of his bedroom window to see a blue cloudless sky. The lime trees had lost about half of their leaves showing the silhouette of the thin branches. The wind blew the remaining leaves and their position was looking increasingly precarious.

Today Mr. Kite and 'his birding companion' set off on a birding competition. The guestimates were thirty-eight and forty for the number of species to be spotted. Soon The Incapacitants were pedaling into wind, breeze and bluster as the bird count progressed slowly. With the blustering wind the birds were scarce; the usual bird haunts were just wavering bushes, plants and shrubs devoid of birds.

In the warm sunshine The Incapacitants stopped, scoured and searched the surrounding vegetation and sky for bird but in the chilly breeze that blew they pedaled to the next sheltered spot to avoid The Big Chill. The count increased slowly with the usual. Sharpstone Quarry produced very little but corvids. Springfield Pool had mallards, coots and moorhens. Now Atcham Bridge was pretty good with a juvenile herring gull and a kingfisher flashing around.

Then it was onto Venus Pool where the water is draining away. A few ducks and gulls and little else. A walk around the outside produced bullfinches, great tits and not much else. Snipe Bog was bare. Now at this stage the competiton was hotting up with thirty eight species spotted; so it onto the unnamed pool at 519068 on OS126. With cormorant and tufted duck Mr. Kite shot into the lead then to mark the occasion about two hundred meadow pipits flew from the field to the waters edge repeatedly. Now this large flock of tietiks was the best spot of the day; a large bobbing flock of pipits. To cut a long story short The Incapacitants then returned via Condover and saw very little.

After a good day out Mr. Kite celebrated with a tipple of Tetley's tea. Cheers.