A great Reculvery - Desert Wheatear

I was in a foul mood last week, admittedly I spent much of Friday clearing up the toys that I had unceremoniously thrown out of my pram.  I shouldn't really have these items in my flat anyway as I have no children of my own or anyone else's.  The reason for these histrionics were simple.  A sprinkling of Desert Wheatear shaped gold-dust along the eastern coastline, and no efficient means to see them.

There are many photographs of the bird that I went to see today at Reculver in Kent scattered like gold-dust all over the interweb, by which I mean, websites dedicated for proliferating news about birds.  And the reasons were strikingly obvious.

So today, I took out a second mortgage and headed over to Avis rent-a-car in the centre of Londinium, where it took around four days to complete the paperwork, and another week and a half to negotiate my way out of London.  Thankfully the bird was still present when I arrived.

Having mentioned gold-dust twice and through a complex transmutation alchemic reversal process, this gem of bird was just behaving ridiculously.  It is any wonder why there are so many amazing photographs as it posed beautifully firstly on the right side of the path a hundred metres or so east of the wonderful Anglo-Saxon church on top of some discarded detritus.  The bird then moved beach-side, the light was fantastic, the bird even more so, and I still couldn't get a decent photograph on my point 'n' shoot.  Nevermind.  It was a complete joy to spend my time in the presence of this delightful bird.  A real privilege, and a real cracker and my third this year (with two stunning Spring males seen in Cyprus).

And if this wasn't enough, then how about, a Shore Lark along with two Snow Bunting, a very late Whinchat, c120 Golden Plover, and 300+ Brent Goose, and half a dozen Stonechat.

The toys and the pram are on Ebay.  I need the money.






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