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Welcome to my blog. If you live in Surrey and birding is your obsession (to get out of bed at some ridiculously early time of the morning, no matter what the weather, to go and look at birds isn't normal behaviour, believe me) and you're still a bit of a novice (like me) then, hopefully, this blog is for you.



Wednesday 3 September 2014

FORENESS POINT PRE-SIERRA NEVADA

Just two days to go before Annie and I fly off to Spain for a week in the Sierra Nevada. As it is the first holiday we have had in some time (five years) we are really looking forward to it. We still won't believe we are really going until we actually get to Orgiva, south of Granada, and are sitting by the pool with a glass of wine in hand.

We have been to Orgiva twice before and find it great value. The area is rustic and unpretentious and not too touristy. The weather is always hot and sunny at this time of year, the mountains are arid and spectacular, and hopefully there will be some bird life to look at, too.

Birding isn't the main reason for going but I will be interested to see what I can conjure up during the eight days. What I won't be doing is driving around all day looking for potential birding spots. This holiday is for relaxing, something Annie and I certainly need at the moment with both my parents – one in a home suffering from a rapid decline due to dementia, the other having a return of a cancer after a two-year reprieve – in need of close attention when we get back, but we need to chill out for a bit first. I just hope I can rid myself of the guilt of probably enjoying myself by the time I've driven the two hours to the villa.

I was down in Margate again on Monday to take my mum for her appointment with the onchologist and on the way home had a quick look around Foreness Point in the gathering gloom for migrants. I came up with four Whinchat and a couple of Wheatear.

Wheatear at Foreness Point
Whinchat at Foreness Point
No Wrynecks this time, although one was spotted over by Margate Cemetery just after I left.

Last night I took a very quick stroll around the local patch, just in case a huge flock of waders dropped by. There was just one, a solitary Common Sandpiper on the edge of the Water Colour Lagoons. A Kingfisher flew across the lagoon and a couple of Willow Warbler flitted and chirped in the shrubbery along the edge of the Water Colour mound.

Not exactly Tice's Meadow...

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