Sunday, November 14, 2004

Wild grebe chase

I was sitting at my computer, swathed in duvet and busy feeling ill, when The Natural Stone phoned me to say he'd had a message from Kevan Wolstencroft and Howard Butler about not one , but two scarce grebes together at Crown Lakes, Farcet - a Slavonian and a Black-necked! Black-necked occurs in the PBC area fairly regularly, but there hasn't been a Slav since 2000 - I neeeeeeeeed it!

The thought of that was enough to get me out of the house, so I headed down there ASAP. At 3.30pm, it was bright but the sun was sinking (obviously). After some initial trouble locating any water bodies, I had a call from The Northerners (Will Bowell and his Long-Suffering Dad, Ray, and Josh Jones). "You found them yet? We know you're here!"

No...

After getting more gen from Howard, I pinpointed the location where they'd been seen last. Scanning and scanning and scanning brought nothing, apart from the usual Great Crested and Little Grebes, some Ruddy Ducks and not a lot else.

The Northerners checked one side of the pit and I looked over from the other. Nothing. Oh dear. Surely they couldn't have left already? We stood around, waiting and scanning, until it got too dark to see. I don't know where the grebes went, but they sure as hell weren't at Crown Lakes anymore...

Twitching is rubbish.

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