Holiday shocker

In almost exactly 24 hours time I was going to be leaving for Iceland on another photographic marathon. It was going to be non-stop shutter abuse for close to 72 hours. Divers, Skuas, Phalaropes, Eiders.  Get our your tiny tiny violins however, as the pressures of work and in particular a surprise external meeting have forced me to cancel. This has never happened before, holidays are (were) sacrosanct. Maybe I have been lucky up to this point, especially how frequently I travel, but to say I am gutted is an understatement. What a pisser. It will be even worse when young Michael, who is still going, returns with a shed load of top quality images (check out the recent efforts here) whilst I have a blank memory card and a head full of Regulatory Capital articles. 

Still, Romania was extremely productive, and after a roadside sleep at 3am somewhere near the Danube, Mick and I gathered our strength and made it to the Black Sea coast. He had a vague memory of photographing Collared Pratincoles somewhere close to Constanta, and a bit of internet digging gave us two places to try. We struck lucky at the second, although by then the light was slightly against us. Fabulous birds. Imagine a Tern crossed with a Swallow, dressed up in a Red-legged Partridge outfit. They're sensational - I'm not sure how many species there are, but I remember ticking the three UK vagrant ones in the space of about three weeks some years ago. This was much much better. Better than Red-throated Divers - that's what I have to keep telling myself...