Err.............more Stints.

This is getting a little repetitive.









The Red Necked Stints were still around at Kamiso. 20-30 today along with a Dunlin and Terek Sandpiper. Better pics than yesterday.






Like the Nuthatches in winter an easy photo chance isn't to be spurned.






Nowt else going on.





I had hundreds of shots of Stints to sift through and now I have a headache. So I've cracked open a cold beer.

Around August 28 down the years:

1982 (August 28). My first ever birding jaunt down the Ribble in Penwortham. Wow. Green Sandpiper, Curlew, Dunlin , Ringed Plover, Wheatear and Rock Pipit..........all these great birds within walking distance from my house. I was only 13.

1983 (end August). The grand total of 120 Ringed Plover on the Ribble at Penwortham.

1985 (August 28). Ribble again. 15 (!) Wheatear, 1 Little Owl, 1 Egyptian Goose, various waders including Greenshank, Stock Dove..........

1986 (August 23) Marshside. Wood Sandpiper, Hobby plus Marsh Harrier at Martinmere.

1988 (August 29) Seaforth/Frodsham. Little Gull, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint.......

1990 (August 23) Walney/Leighton Moss. Greenshank, Eider, Little Stint.......

1994 (August 28). In the space of one week I went from this



to this



I quit my job as social worker in Hackney and went to North Queensland for a while. I stayed with 2 of my uncles at first. It was a strange week. The journey was epic. I left Preston on a Friday afternoon and took the train down to London where I called in on a friend for a joint and then got a taxi to Heathrow. I had a few beers at the airport bar and lots of gin and tonics on the plane and arrived at the old Hong Kong airport on Saturday night local time. I hit the bar (I had a 5 hour wait) and ended up talking to an Englishman who was going to Australia to marry his niece. More beers on the Hong Kong to Cairns flight followed and I arrived in Australia at 7am on a Sunday morning blind drunk. The first thing that struck me was that the immigration officers were wearing shorts.

The first birds I remember seeing were a group of Caspian Terns in the centre of a roundabout in Cairns. At my uncle's house there were all sorts of amazing birds in the garden........honeyeaters, lorikeets...........my uncle (rest in peace) then took me out to get really drunk at the local pub. Australians are supposed to be so so macho but why do they drink such tiny glasses of beer? My uncle (who was born English) declined to answer.

The first week was fantastic. I recall sitting in a chair on a balcony getting drunk and stoned and counting 8 species of raptor in the skies. Then I had a jacuzzi. I also visited the Daintree river and got all the Herons and stuff you would expect although my main memory of the day was the Australian Bee-eaters. And the huge buffet in Cairns afterwards.



1996 (August 30). Another big change in my life. I moved to Munich. Little photographic evidence survives of my time there. Here's proof I was in fact resident there when I visited immigration a couple of weeks later. I don't look like this anymore.



Birds? The first 2 weeks I was boarding with a family in Deisenhofen, a quaint satellite town of Munich about 40 minutes way by train. Lots of nice Bavarian houses but the town was dull as ditchwater. Lots of Black Redstarts though.

2002 (Aug 25). Visited an old friend in Devon/Cornwall. Stonechat, Fulmar Peregrine, lots of Little Egret and Cettis Warbler...........

2006 (Aug 25) Black Throated Diver at Kamiso. A few days later there was a Great Knot on the nearby beach.