Rebecca's First Twitch = Phil's Easter Present

Today, Easter Sunday, we traveled over to Grimsby to visit many relatives. This had been planned for a while. Then over the past few days I received a series of e-mail alerts from Birdguides, saying that Dotterels had been spotted near Tetney Lock. Now Tetney is a small village just outside of Grimsby. And I had never seen a Dotterel. So I suggested to Rebecca that, as we were going to be so very near, we might take an ever-so short detour to (whisper this word) twitch.

To my delight she said yes! As long as I got up early. Now some of you know that my current intake of SSRIs has helped me become very chilled. So chilled that it takes me some time to get warmed up in the mornings. But no matter! At the prospect of a Life Tick, I managed to get up at 6:00 am, we were on the road at 7:00 am and at 8:45 am we were in a wind swept pea field not too far from the North Sea. So were five Dotterel. And so were a growing band of like minded men.

Thank you, Rebecca, for being the only woman in that pea field, as frozen as the crop will be in a few months, but uncomplaining and enjoying the birds.

Year Tick 129. Life Tick. And a very smart bird, I hope you agree. The Dotterel wasn't bad either.