Busy

I have been busy. I am always busy, as time is too easily wasted. I do not waste time, except of course on the British Airways website. Generally though even all that piss-arsing around turns out to be well worth it. Ten days have passed since I last posted anything on here, for which you should only thank your lucky stars. I did do roughly a post a day on various birds seen in the UAE. You can get to them via my trips page, however for ease of clicking, I have painstakingly listed them below. Be aware that they are photo-heavy and content light. Sooty Gull, more Gulls, Terns, Waders, Plovers, Wheatears, Indian Roller, Green Bee-eater, and the best of the rest. That the Gulls come first is sadly no coincidence, as that's what I spent most time doing. That'll teach me to travel with extremists. I've still got a bit of work to do to update galleries, but I'll hopefully get to this in the next few days. If I don't have an immense "To-do" list I can't actually survive.

Naturally I've not birded the patch once in the last ten days. Work and daylight hours being what they are it's not really possible, a tax return reared its ugly head, and during the one weekend that has passed I skipped the country for some father-son bonding in southern Spain. This included snowballs in the mountains and piddling around on a beach by the sparkling blue sea, and whilst not a great success on the bird photography front was very enjoyable indeed in a warm and tapas-y kind of way. This weekend will be the complete opposite as I am here birding - back to basics. This bloody cold snap had better produce a Fieldfare on the patch. If it doesn't I may be forced to go to Rainham to find the Ravens.

In other news our washing machine gave up the ghost following the sock assault, and a new one has now arrived. Given that the old one lasted ten years and three children, I have high hopes for the new one which is the same make. It is already proving its worth, as you can still hold a conversation during the spin cycle, something made impossible by the old machine which sounded like a vulcan bomber taking off in its latter days. The old machine sat on our front path for less than 24 hours before being snaffled by the scrap metal merchants that cruise the neighbourhood on a semi-permanent basis, thus obviating the need for any council involvement. They were booked to come in a couple of weeks, during which time my house would have stood out even more as the scummy one on the street, so I cannot really fault the efficiency of a free market economy. 

A really quite cool leucistic Stonechat taken in Malaga. In flight it looked like a miniature Squacco Heron.