Moonlight chorus.

It has been a day of winery showers and bright weather in between. However there has been a good fresh wind blowing all. Little has been seen by me today. The top of the loch has been whipped in to the air and blown away from time to time. Nothing really conducive to some relaxing birding. It was doubly frustrating as I received my new tripod (Vanguard 1880) from scopesnskies and wanted to get out for a few hours. I have had a spy about with it tho and am initially well pleased. Its huge, Fully extended I need to stand on a chair to use it…not that I will do so in the field I suppose. It is going to make a reasonably stable and high platform for my 8x56s for a bit of star spotting so I look forward to that. So I have just been out for a shot of the moon between the clouds and it all seems nice and stable. Last night I heard the calls of three Curlews as they rose above the house. I was well pleased as they were the first proper bubbles I had heard this year. Tonight it seemed the rest gad decided to join in and all sing at the moon. With the dropping wind there is a whole cacophony of bird song rising from the adjacent fields and filling the dark air. I counted thirteen Curlews rise and call in a matter of a minute of listening, delightful and relentless it was. Speaking of relentless the Oystercatcher population has been going at it for a while now. I think it is the males that make all the calls and it sounds like they never sleep just walk around with there heads down calling and calling. It goes on all night and will for a while yet I am pleased to say. There are the Greylag geese at roost as well. There must be a few hundred at roost a couple of fields away because there constant squabaly calls are loud close and massed Below them on the wet pools are the whistling cries of a flock of Widgeon and the quacks of Mallards. Whilst its not exactly the delight of a woodland dawn chorus it is still music to my ears. Things are starting to happen and winters grip is beginning to loose….excellent!!