Desert Wheatear - Bempton Cliffs RSPB, East Yorkshire, 30 December 2011
No birding so far this Christmas holiday has made indiebirder a dull boy. So when I got the chance to have a morning out on my own, I jumped at the chance to get to the east coast at RSPB Bempton Cliffs for a bracing walk and, with luck, a gander at the long-staying Desert Wheatear.
There are few birds round Bempton in winter, compared to the overcrowded cliffs and overwhelming smell that accompanies the auks, gannets, kittiwakes, and fulmar in summer. Not many birders here in winter either – the place felt deserted when I arrived at 09:00. But still, there were loads of Tree Sparrow around the visitor centre and Linnets in the fields on the day I was there. A few Skylark and Meadow Pipits in the fields, Jackdaw and Carrion Crow, and the plentiful Feral Pigeon/Rock Dove population made up the full avifauna. Oh, and a Desert Wheatear.
Desert Wheatear - Bempton Cliffs RSPB, East Yorkshire, 30 December 2011
Desert Wheatear - Bempton Cliffs RSPB, East Yorkshire, 30 December 2011
Desert Wheatear - Bempton Cliffs RSPB, East Yorkshire, 30 December 2011
It took a while to locate, giving me time to take the sea
air; but once it was out in the open it showed very well. A peach of a bird –
much more clearly marked than I imagined. As a birder pointed out to me, it
looked exactly like the pictures in the guide books.
I failed big style on the music front on this trip. My wife
had cleared the car of CDs recently, after my daughter had developed a healthy
(in my view) appetite for early Black Sabbath and insisted on playing Masters
of Reality during every journey. The radio let me down badly. On Radio 2 there
was Richard Madeley describing a Steely Dan track as “preeeeeety good” in a
whispered mid-Atlantic accent during the song’s outro; and then there was a
documentary on Carole King’s brilliant Tapestry album, but the inane questions
from Johnnie Walker, and the defensive answers from Carole, detracted from the actual
tracks. Rubbish. Then the Hagen String Quartet played Beethoven’s Quartet in B
flat major Op.130 for strings, with Grosse Fuge finale. It nearly gave me an
epileptic fit in the frantic middle bit, but not in a good way. Not the best
twitching music I’d heard, but I’m off to No Hands at the Bradford Polish Club
tonight. Always a treat.
