Back to Reality

Blue-backed Manakin

I love that feeling you get when you step off a plane and into your new climate - in Tobago a wall of warmth hit me as soon as I emerged from the door. In the same way that I love that particular sensation, I hate the opposite. Having spent a week in that warmth, coming back was very difficult - and the weather the day we came back was atrocious. Cold, driving rain.
This weekend has been nicer, cold and crisp, but having just been away for over a week, I didn't feel it was right to immediately bugger off birding, so it has been a quiet one of lego and eating, domestic bliss basically. I managed a very short wander round Bush Wood - our Firecrest has returned - and found a few Goldcrests. The lack of Hummingbirds and Motmots was a disappointment, but I actually found this return to the patch less depressing than, say, having just come back off Shetland. I don't know why this should be, but it wasn't actually so bad. Perhaps it was because I had my flash and imagined myself in the rainforest again?

I met Nick in Bush Wood, also looking for Firecrests. We agreed that we were both just waiting for January 1st again, going through the motions. There are certain points in the year - for me the start of February and right now - that patch birding becomes a complete chore, and frankly I would rather be indoors, warm, and drinking tea or something stronger. It's not as if I've got nothing to do - there is heaps. I have to write a section of the 2010 LBR, I have to try and gather a pile of photos together for it (what do you mean you didn't hear about the Staines Res Tropicbird?), and I also have a million photos from Tobago still to edit, in addition to needing to think about Christmas and stuff. Oh, and work.

I need a holiday.