Sergeant Major Murphy is a tough taskmaster, so it was out the house early on Saturday to mix with fellow crepuscular elements of humanity such as insomniac dog-walkers, dirty stop-outs, keen paperboys and well, birders.
With the hope of encountering some migrants, we concentrated on the dunes and paddocks behind Presthaven Gulag and after a rather slow start, things began to pick-up around the small copse close to the static ghetto.
A ménage a trios of Stonechats and a few skulking ‘Phyllos’ warblers kept the bins interested, but the most interesting migrant by far was a single Treecreeper – not a very familiaris (a gag that will surely have you 'race' nerds rolling in the aisles) bird at Talacre and my first for the site.
The actual paddocks area was more productive with Wheatears perhaps nudging into two figures. These were accompanied by a host of commoner birds including Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and a solo juvenile Reed Bunting.
After spending twenty minutes poking around an old farm house looking for evidence of any visible Owls, it was off to the old colliery site for an appointment with the tide.
At eight and a half metres, it was enough to push all and sundry to their favoured roosting spots, but despite a good variety of waders that included a quartet of Turnstones, a Greenshank and a Whimbrel, none of the currently ubiquitous Curlew Sandpipers were on our radar.
The sea was quiet (although things should heat up here early in the week), with just a handful of Terns; two of the birds were of passing interest – one seemingly in possession of a very dark bill with a lighter base.
Roseate? Probably not and it was too far away to be sure, to be sure.
Until later.
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