JON'S JOURNAL: Wot No Curlews?

For the third day running I went to Northam Burrows this afternoon, in an attempt to film the herd of curlews that we saw the other day. (Yes, the collective noun for a group of curlews is a 'herd'. Thank you for that, Corinna).

Nope, there was nothing there.

The only thing that we did see was a huge flock of some birds or other (possibly starlings) in the middle distance. Graham hiked off to get close enough to photograph them, but a dog being walked by a young bloke in garish sportwear ran up to them and the flock flew off.

The moral of the story here is, not only CHECK YOUR BATTERIES BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE which is not only common sense but pretty much self evident, but also a more philosophical one.

Basically, when one has a magickal experience due to the good offices of Mother Nature, and - believe me - seeing a whole herd of these comical birds skittering about earnestly, like badly animated clockwork figures (I was sooooo reminded of The Mouse and his Child) is a truly magickal experience - these things are one-offs, and should be treated as such. Mother Nature isn't some crappy cable network. Magickal experiences like a herd of curlews don't happen on the hour every hour with gaps for advert breaks.

No siree. It doesn't work like that.

So if - like me - you wish to be a humble supplicant worship at the altar of Mother Nature, you had better make sure your camera works properly. Here endeth the Gospel for today.

There were also so many people there including revolting adolescent males on trials bikes, and the aforementioned bloke in his designer sportware, that I began to get cross, so we went home via Boots (yes, I finally managed to get my diabetic shortbread HUZZAH!!!) and stopped off at Kennerland where we found that my gloomy prognostications were correct, and the recent cold snap did indeed kill off all the January frogspawn, which is now sadly rotting away (see bottom picture).