Some more twitching

So we have all been pretty poor on the patching front recently but I think we have all been out for some dirty twitching recently - who couldn't resist a Brünnich's Guillemot in Dorset?

Simon and I hatched a cunning plan - rather than join the crowds in glorious weather over the weekend we decided to add a little extra risk by going on the Monday...5 days after it was found. Rob, rather sensibly, decided that he would take the safe path and headed down over the weekend.

Which lead to me getting up at 12:30 AM yesterday morning and driving over to Milton Keynes to meet up with Simon and Nick who, in a weak drunken moment, agreed to come along with us. We left MK at 04:00 and drove south into gale force winds and heavy rain.

07:10 - we pulled into the car park at Portland to be greeted by horizontal, torrential rain. And it was dark.
07:20 - we headed off to find some food.

After 30 mins of random driving we finally listened to Nick's suggestion that Weatherspoons opened early for breakfast and, with the help of his Weatherspoons app, were tucking into a cracking full english breakfast by 08:00 - thanks Nick!

We then headed back to Portland and after some more random driving and searching in the wind and rain, the guillemot was located off the old castle.

It was very grey, wet and windy. The Brünnich's Guillemot is just by the end of the pontoon, honest!

We spent an hour or so watching the bird, with it sometimes coming close (I am sure Simon will add his record shots later...) before the weather got the better of us and we decided to retreat back to the car and head off to Brixham for the White-billed Diver.

About an hour after leaving we remembered that there was a Glossy Ibis back at Radipole...we had managed to completely forget in the excitement of seeing the Guillemot and trying to dry our gear...doh!

12:00 and we were in Brixham, the sun was out and after a brief search were enjoying the banana-billed bird. The bird headed out of the harbour before being chased back in by 3 camera waving blokes in a boat. They then spent the next 30 mins or so chasing the Diver around the harbour, to the amusement/distaste of those on the harbour side. The upside for us was that the bird did come quite close at times and I could grab a couple of record images with my little OM-D and 100-300 lens.

All in all a cracking day - 2 UK ticks for me, 4 species of diver and all 3 UK Guillemots!