Grey Phalarope

I have just seen the Grey Phalarope in Aberystwyth! Very exciting!

If you’re interested they are by the ice cream kiosk on South Beach.

For photos see the Ceredigion Birds blog.

Escaping the office

Yesterday was my day off, and for the first time since our Christmas break I was able to escape my office and enjoy the beautiful, cold crisp weather we’ve been having.

 

However first of all I had to endure a trip to the optician. Why is it that the optician always feels much more like an exam than either the doctors or the dentist? I just feel like an idiot because I can’t see half the letters, but perhaps that’s just because I’m a perfectionist!

Anyway, I managed to escape from there after about an hour and a half with a new pair of specs and a new pair of sunglasses on order which totally blew our budget out of the water for this month L. I nearly screamed in the middle of the shop when the woman told me my lenses weren’t suitable for the frames I’d just spent 30 minutes choosing from a whole load I hated anyway. I ended up with kids frames because my face is too small!! My wedding ring is kids size too – shame it doesn’t make it any cheaper!!

 

So after all this kerfuffle we finally managed to get out into the countryside which put me in a much better mood. Everything was frozen and beautiful.

You can’t see awfully well on this video but the banks and part of the river were all frozen solid. (Note: Sorry if you get sea sick while viewing that video – I don’t have the steadiest of camera hands!)

 

 

 

We saw Snipe and Woodcock, both life ticks (first time I’ve seen one) so that was exciting, as well as some lovely bullfinches, redwing, White fronted geese and the other regulars.

I’m not the biggest fan of proper ‘twitching’ as it involves far too much standing around looking at little brown birds that I can never find in my binoculars anyway. I tend to take a more active approach (which normally involves embarrassing Josh), like making goat noises to attract Snipe or dancing around like a Morris dancer to attract Night Jars (before you laugh this does actually work very well – they are very curious and the males think the hankies are the wingtips of a rival bird).

Try it, even if it doesn’t work the look on the other birdwatchers’ faces is priceless