Dipper Davies strikes again

Sometimes it might seem like everywhere I go I see things, and life's just one new tick after another. Yet there is a another, unseen, darker side to birding. It began last week, Tuesday to be precise. I called in at Blithfield Reservoir in Staffordshire, on my way down to Hampshire, in the hope of seeing a couple of Ospreys that had been there for a few days. They were still there (apparently) but I couldn't see them, there was a blanket of thick fog over the entire area. I had to go back the following day.

Then on Sunday I went to the Great Orme. The Dotterel disappeared shortly before we arrived and reappeared shortly after we left, after we had spent almost five hours there. On Monday I decided to have a second, more relaxed look at the Stilt sandpiper at Neumann's Flash in Cheshire. I was there at 7:30am, just minutes after it had been flushed to Sandbach by a Sparrowhawk.

Yesterday evening I decided to call in at Pennington Flash to have a look at the Lesser Scaup that has been present for a day or two. No luck, it flew to the other end of the flash moments before I arrived and we couldn't relocate it. So I decided to go again this morning on my way into work. It's probably still there, but once again a thick blanket of fog stopped me seeing it. Aaaargh! Hopefully that's the end of it and I can return to a life of seeing everything I try for.

On the positive side, I did at least see the Ospreys the following day, I did see the Stilt sandpiper on Saturday and I have already seen Lesser scaup this year, and it's not even a Pennington flash tick for me. So who cares...............