Monday 13 February 2012

Born in the USA


13 February


It is hard life out here, as Chris keeps telling me every time he sees me. So bad I usually spend about 14 weeks a year out of the country, and the second of 2012 is coming up at the end of this week so this could the last post for a bit and spring is really up and running. Birding this weekend was almost totally off-island, but I did unexpectedly fall in with a tick on Saturday afternoon. It should also shut the rest of them up for a bit as it was from a bike. The only tick, I would think, I will get from a bike all year. Nobody with a few interlinking brain neurones, never mind an ounce of common sense, would consider cycling out here; the trucks are massive and roads bigger and most of the drivers are either reckless lunatics or underfed and overworked labourers who haven’t slept properly for days. I can well imagine what one of them shaving past me an inch too close along the Eastern Lagoon would do to my bones, never mind my Swarovskis. So, as you have probably worked out by now, the ‘bike’ was an exercise bike. The bird, also the only tick I can ever recall getting whilst being blasted by loud music (not Metallica this time;sorry Simon) was a Pale Crag Martin that appeared over the swimming pool on the other side of the glass doors. It actually took me a couple of minutes to register that it was #100 (there wasn’t much blood getting to my brain at that point) and then to curse that it had probably flown over the balcony (only 50m to the right) before I got onto it. See, told you it was a hard life.

OSCAR

Total so far - 100 (56%)
Last addition – Pale Crag Martin (11 February)

1 comment:

  1. "Nobody with a few interlinking brain neurones, never mind an ounce of common sense, would consider cycling out here"

    Rewind to Abu Dhabi spring 2009 and I distinctly remember one Oscar J Campbell repeatedly saying he was considering getting a bicycle! Selective memory or the result of a mother's wisdom?!

    ReplyDelete