When I first took up my camera again, about half a dozen years ago now, I was lucky enough to flukily grab a rather lovely photograph of a Robin as it happened to settle near to us as we were walking around the gardens at Portmeirion. It was a completely happy accident, and had nothing whatsoever to do with any skills (or lack of) that I might have as a picture snapper, but it did manage to trigger a minor interest in me for bird-watching and wildlife photography which continues to this day, despite the fact that I've never quite managed to capture a moment quite so successfully as that one.
The breaching whale off Provincetown that summer comes fairly close, but since then it's been six rather disappointing years of not having the camera ready at the right moment, and shapeless blurry feathery shapes flying out of frame whilst I swear at myself.
So it was rather pleasant when I sat myself down at the edge of a beach at Cemlyn as the beloved took a quiet half hour to observe the Ringed Plovers as they waded through the mud, when my little buddy here parked itself on the path right next to me and hung around for a good few minutes without being frightened off by me.
Well, it certainly acted as if it was my little buddy, and stayed around for longer than some of my actual friendships have managed to in the past few years, hopping from the stones of the beach to right next to me on the path, and even loitering around in the nearby bushes for a couple of minutes as we got back together and moved on in search of observations new, before eventually flying away to adventures unknown.
Now, I'm not very good at bird identification, especially when it comes to the little brown birds which may or may not be in their juvenile plumage anyway, but a quick look at the RSPB website tells me that my little buddy was most probably a Pipit of some kind which does, at least, make sense, although I can't quite decide whether it's a Rock, Tree or Meadow one. I'm sure that someone reading this one day will roll their eyes, tut to themselves knowledgeably and say that it's obviously something completely different but, in the meantime, I'm sticking with Pipit.
I wonder what became of my little buddy...?
I know that I'll never know, but at least I've got this little snapshot to remember it with.
Slightly tricky to judge without a sense of scale, tree pipit would be the most likely, I agree. There is some similarity to a Song Thrush, but of course that's a much bigger bird, and that's where the sense of scale comes in handy. Nice picture either way!
ReplyDeleteLarger than a sparrow, smaller than a hawk (and able to fly over tall buildings after a few flaps I'll be bound...) :-)
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