Parfum de Rongeur Mort

I got up early this morning for my first whole hours worth of scintillating seawatching this spring. Gav was already at The Yacht Club when I got there, his notebook already crammed full with a plethora of quality seabirds. OK, he'd actually seen a few Gannets. It was generally pretty slow going despite a good moderate southeasterly breeze. There was however a small purple patch where I saw my first Manx Shearwaters this year, three of them, if you read (or have read) Steve's Blog you'll see that he saw FORTY THREE Manxies, and we were watching for more or less the same time, at more of less the same time, looking at the same patch of sea but it must be said NOT in the same place. I think a trip to the opticians is on the cards for one of us! Also a massive highlight my first Skuas of the year two superb Bonxies. First of many I hope, I just love 'em. The thought of seeing a a Skua or two ( especially a Pom or LTS) always keeps me watching for that extra few minutes/hours! There was a diver too, it definitely wasn't a Red-throated Diver and didn't look like a Great Northern Diver to me either but I couldn't get any positive ID features to clinch it as a Black-throated Diver, nor could Gav, and seeing as neither of us has a yearlist on the go we weren't at all adverse to calling it an unidentified diver sp..

A while later I took Rex for his walk along the lower reaches of the River Coly where the only birds of note were a couple of Sand Martins. I neglected to keep a close enough eye on him and I turned around to see him ecstatically rolling on the ground, rubbing his back on a putrefying rat corpse! This kind of thing has happened before, making the trip home in the car almost unbearable, only in non riverside locations though; Rex knew what was coming next...

"What?! What have I done? I think I smell GREAT!! It's my favourite 'Parfum de Rongeur Mort'. It's very classy!"

On these occasions Rex always somehow just happens to take an impromptu swimming lesson, why wait until he gets home to give him a bath.

Whoops! Sorry Rex, my foot slipped.

"Sorry Mum, It wont happen again" ("until next time, tee he!")

On the way home I stopped at the estuary to take a look at the fantastic new arrival Steve had spotted; It was so stunning I just had to take a photo, you know, the kind of photo that would really do it justice, or not :-)

Et Voila!