The Agony and the Ecstasy

11/07/09

Now that I’ve hopefully grabbed your attention, I’ll explain. For the second time this year, I was having a cracked windscreen replaced, and I was filling in time with a bit of culture. I hadn’t expected to get the car back until later in the afternoon, so now I had a bit of a dilemma. When I had checked on the web first thing in the morning to see if there was anything about, I was both excited and frustrated to see that there was a Stilt Sandpiper at Loch of Strathbeg. And a Pectoral one too. Would they stay until the next day? But now suddenly, it was only lunch time, and I was free to go. Trouble was, I had no bins or scope in the car. Not to worry, there were both available at the Visitor Centre for numpties like me. So off I set.

Two days earlier, I had been to Strathbeg. There had been nothing in particular to go for, I just hadn’t been for a while. On the way there, I made a diversion to Culsalmond to see if I could get lucky with a Quail. Apparently one or two were calling there. Of course knowing my luck with Quails, I heard nothing. Strathbeg had been disappointing too, with nothing more than a Greenshank of note, unless you count all the newly fledged Black-headed Gulls and terns, which was nice. Returning home that day, I stopped at the Ythan estuary. The tide was fully in. After a bit, it began to ebb, and the terns began fishing. There had been a Caspian Tern seen there a few days earlier, so I kept that at the back of my mind. It was fun watching their fishing activities, at quite close range. Then I noticed a tern flying upstream, along the far bank, about a quarter of a mile away. Through the bins I could see that it was a bit bigger than the Sandwich Terns, with a slower, stronger wingbeat. The undersides of the wings were dark towards the tips. Because it was going away from me, I couldn’t see the bill. It soon disappeared out of sight. Caspian Tern? Could have been. I’m left wondering. The agony.

Back to yesterday, and I arrived at Strathbeg. There were a few people in the VC, and from their demeanour I deduced the Stilt Sandpiper was under scrutiny. Aren’t birders wonderful people? Seeing I was naked in the optics department, one of them very kindly lent me his scope, which was already trained on the bird. At first I didn’t recognise it. It was nothing like the one I had seen last September on the Solway. Then it dawned on me – this one was still pretty much in summer plumage. Very nice too! There was no mention of the Pectoral Sandpiper, so I had a look around, and after a bit of searching I picked it up, skulking among the reeds. The others were soon on to it too.

I left in high spirits, and had a flash of inspiration. I would go back home via Culsalmond, and have another listen for that elusive Quail. Or was I just pushing my luck? When I arrived at the spot, a narrow road through miles of cereal fields, it was drizzling, and the wind was cool. Still, I was there, so I got out of the car and stood to listen. After about ten minutes of listening to several twittering Swallows and a manic Skylark right over head, my mind started to wander. Suddenly, I realised I was hearing a faint “wet-my-lips” call. Only twice, then silence, apart from the wind in my ears. Had I imagined it? Was this another maybe moment? I carried on listening, getting wetter as the drizzle turned to rain. After another twenty minutes, two cars had passed, probably wondering what this idiot was doing. Then, there it was again. Four times. No doubting it now. The ecstasy.