Classic arrival conditions?

After the Seal and Seaduck Special on Saturday, we opted for a birdwatching walk on Sunday.  The original plan was to leave my car at Alnmouth, drive to Craster in Sarah’s car and then walk the coastal path between the two villages.  As we set off from Craster it looked good for our walk, but within 15 minutes we were caught up in a howling southerly and driving icy rain.  Eventually, after slightly less than half of our planned route we admitted defeat and returned to Craster harbour.  Then the weather improved…sitting and enjoying our picnic at the harbourside, watching Turnstones, Redshanks and Oystercatchers, we were alerted to the presence of a dumpy brown bird coming ‘in-off’ as everything scattered from the harbour wall.  Thoughts of Little Owl, or something rarer, quickly vanished as the bird’s very long bill became evident.  Now, mid-October in a howling northeasterly is the time we would expect to find Woodcock arriving on the coast, but early December in a 25mph southerly?  It landed just a few feet from us, in the middle of the track, and sat for about 20 seconds before flying low up the road out of the village.

After 2 days out and about, the payback was a day of housework/admin on Monday.  So, I decided to ‘sort out’ our bookshelves.  Always a bad idea as I’m easily distracted, and re-arranging our books invariably leads to “hmm, I haven’t looked at that for a while”…