As keen as ever I awoke before first light from the slumbers of our farmhouse ready to venture into pastures new and hopefully find some good birds. The walk took me across a few fields and towards the coast where a few
Wheatears, a
Whinchat and several
Chiffs were seen. A few hours wandering the area before getting back for breakfast revealed potentially what a great area this would be to have as your local patch. Much of the habitat was very
Scilly like, and I'm sure with time and effort stuff would be found in ideal conditions. Once I'd met up with Louise again we spent the remainder of the day wandering the area and getting to grips with the various parts of the
Rame area. I decided to visit the church at
Rame as the sign indicated it was open. An excellent little church full of character and very well maintained, I spent some time here before I heard 'voices' and on opening the door I was greeted with, 'Barry Wright' what are you doing here? Low and behold, it was me old mate Dave Allan, not the comedian that would have been a challenge nowadays but the ex Kent birder from
Thanet with his wife Mandy.
Dave explained that it was bit surreal seeing me come out of a church of all places as I'm happy to look at them but ceremonially avoid them! The last time I saw Dave was in 2002 at Plymouth for a
Ross's Gull and we had done many twitches together in the 1980's and early 1990's with Dave Gilbert another
Thanet birder. Dave now lives in
Torpoint and was out for a Sunday stroll.
A great day seeing old friends, getting to know the geography of the area but little did I know that less than a mile from the church there had been three
Dotterel that day in the same field I checked late that day, but I certainly never saw them, maybe they'd already flown or I was simply bird blind!! We'll never know.
As keen as ever I awoke before first light from the slumbers of our farmhouse ready to venture into pastures new and hopefully find some good birds. The walk took me across a few fields and towards the coast where a few Wheatears, a Whinchat and several Chiffs were seen. A few hours wandering the area before getting back for breakfast revealed potentially what a great area this would be to have as your local patch. Much of the habitat was very Scilly like, and I'm sure with time and effort stuff would be found in ideal conditions. Once I'd met up with Louise again we spent the remainder of the day wandering the area and getting to grips with the various parts of the Rame area. I decided to visit the church at Rame as the sign indicated it was open. An excellent little church full of character and very well maintained, I spent some time here before I heard 'voices' and on opening the door I was greeted with, 'Barry Wright' what are you doing here? Low and behold, it was me old mate Dave Allan, not the comedian that would have been a challenge nowadays but the ex Kent birder from Thanet with his wife Mandy.
Dave explained that it was bit surreal seeing me come out of a church of all places as I'm happy to look at them but ceremonially avoid them! The last time I saw Dave was in 2002 at Plymouth for a Ross's Gull and we had done many twitches together in the 1980's and early 1990's with Dave Gilbert another Thanet birder. Dave now lives in Torpoint and was out for a Sunday stroll.
A great day seeing old friends, getting to know the geography of the area but little did I know that less than a mile from the church there had been three Dotterel that day in the same field I checked late that day, but I certainly never saw them, maybe they'd already flown or I was simply bird blind!! We'll never know.
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