Monday
25th January Strong SW to W 13C cloudy, some light drizzle,
suddenly sunny PM
The
day starts with a decision to get a tooth sorted. A bargain of two
Fry's Turkish delight bars for £1 had me chewing one yesterday and
on swallowing I found a large hole in a bottom left molar. Now I have
had problems with this particular tooth for ages and my dentist had
said that the next time she sees me she will have to take it out
under a general anaesthetic. Last year it was this tooth that first
had an abscess and then got cracked even further by a pip inside a
chocolate raisin.
Eleven
o' clock and I am at a NHS dentist in Penzance. Twelve o'clock the
tooth has been cleaned and fixed with a temporary filling. I have to
make an appointment with my dentist for the full removal asap as the
x-ray shows the extent of the infection below the root. Strange it
hasn't caused me any pain at all since the abcess was treated with
antibiotics.
On
the road again, the day's original plan of trying to see garganey and
water pipit at Hayle has changed with the news that the rose-coloured
starling has been seen again at The Lizard.
Through
Marazion and along to Helston I cycle, past a few fields of flowering daffodils. The final ten miles is into
the wind. Reaching The Lizard village I start to search by walking
the streets, looking at every starling group. I consider getting a
bed & breakfast as the weather forecast for tomorrow is of fifty
five mph gales with heavy rain.
Forty
five minutes of searching I look up and the nearest starling of a
small group on telegraph wires is the rosy! It pops down closer onto
a hawthorn bush in a garden and gives views that are so much better
than last year's bird. In 2015 I had the briefest of views of a
superb adult to which this one is dull in comparison. Watching it for
the next half hour I wonder when the full pink plumage of a breeding
bird comes into play. The other common starlings look spnagly in the
sun yet the rosy looks greyish-white on the parts that I expected to
be shocking pink. Still it is another year tick and a very good one
to get.
There
are still a couple of hours of light left in the day and I decide to
cycle to Stithians Lake to try to get the Slavonian grebe before the
bad weather arrives.
Two
hours later, the sun having gone down, I ask a lady for dirctions
instead of looking at the map on my phone. Two miles later, after
hurtling downhill for quite some way, I realise that she has sent me
to the village, not the lake. A large village sign Stithians tells me
so.
Back
up the hill I push as darkness falls. I reach the lake with it too
dark to see anything and a very close tawny owl hoots it's derision.
The
Green Year list now stands at 143, nineteen ahead of where I
was at this time last year.
46.60
miles 2545 feet elevation up 2180 feet elevation down
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