Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Half a day's holiday...

... and for what?

While we were in Cornwall last week, a juvenile Pallid Harrier turned up in east Norfolk, at Winterton. D spent all week going 'I hope it hangs around until we're back!' and since we were too knackered to go for it on Sunday, he opted to take an afternoon off work today.

(I had to follow suit really, or I wouldn't have been able to get home.)

So, we wound our way through the lovely country lanes of Norfolk (mostly on the A14 and A47, actually) until we found the spot where the harrier had been seen last.


There was a small encampment of around 10 birders by the roadside. As we sat down at the edge of a sugar-beet field and began scanning, it was increasingly obvious that none of the other were actually looking for the bird - they were all standing around chatting, comparing optics, bragging about their latest holidays... anything but actively looking for the bird.

We spent three hours sitting and scanning, to no avail.

That's another 0.5 of a day of annual leave, gone, then...

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