December kicks off today ..so here's my rather dismal and pathetic round-up of the sort-of-rare-ish birds I've spotted in a whole panoply of previous Decembers .... prepare to be unimpressed ... 1st Dec 2000 nothing. Not even worth a capital n. 2nd Dec1995 A presumably " shop-bought" Meadow Bunting attracted a massive crowd despite the fact that we all knew it was purchased from somewhere in Birmingham. A strange morning indeed. 3rd Dec NOTHING 4th Dec ZILCH 5th Dec ZERO 6th Dec 1987 Black-throated Diver, Pennington Flash. 7th Dec A total blank. 8th Dec Ditto 9th Dec 2014 Male Chiloe Wigeon on the Lancaster Canal ... probably actually truthfully not countable but it outshone the Mallards and Moorhens. 10thDec A barren wasteland of zeroness. 11th Dec A blasted heath of barrenness 12 Dec Dim byd ( Welsh for "nowt")(you should all know that by now) 13 Dec Nada 14th Dec 1999 No rare birds, bit it was the historic day on which I bought my lovely Zeiss Dialyt 7x42 bins .. but had there been any rarities, I could have watched them rather better than the thousands of preceding days. 15th Dec ...... a black hole of birdlessness. ...... as were the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th. 21st Dec 1996 Black Brant, Pilling Lane, Fylde 1997 Little Auk, Ramsden Dock, Barrow. 22nd Dec Zero stuff, including 23rd to 26th. Bah ! 27th Dec Four Snow Geese , Lancaster Lune salt-marsh. 28th Dec Zilch. 29th Dec 1988 Hoopoe .. Warbray, Cumbria. 30th Dec 238238 divided by 7. then by 11, then by 13, then subtract 238 . Go on ! 31st Dec 1984 Yellow-browed Warbler, Inskip, Fylde. 2000 Waxwing, just the one, last day of the year, jammy or what, Arnside. 2003 2 Shore Larks, 6 Snow Buntings, Starr Hills Blackpool. And quite a few of those aren't real rarities at all .... bah ! Surprisingly, December isn't the "worst" month for rarities. More on that in the pipeline. And here's the links to the other " Monthly Half-Decent Sightings" for previous months .. 855-many-magnificent-may-days.html 878-june-highlights-from-the-past.html 898-all-my-julys-of-the-past.html 913-august-birds-from-the-past.html 930-september-looms-into-view.html 949-october-memories.html 964-novembers-from-the-past.html As I write this, we have drizzle drizzling drizzlingly ... "glaw mân" = thin/fine/petty rain. Here's a very appropriate home-made video. Meteorology rather than Ornithology. It should read"Dafydd Iwan yn y glaw" ... but I missed the "a" out and couldn't fix it. Very elemental this ...
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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