To dip: verb, slang: to miss a sighting of an interesting, often rare example of wildlife (usually bird) which is known to be or recently has been in an area. Being in the right place at the wrong time.
I still haven’t seen the Hen Harrier that is hanging around on my local patch of Stanwick Lakes and I’m hoping a sighting will be a Christmas present.
Also, there are some Otters which have been easy to see and frequently have been seen over recent days at another part of the site. I had a look for them in the gloom this morning but with no success.
But there is always something to see or hear. On Friday morning I heard David Attenborough doing Tweet of the Day just before 6am and he mentioned Hardy’s poem, The Darkling Thrush, which I like a lot. But I thought he was a bit early to be going on about singing Song Thrushes this side of Christmas but, of course, I was wrong. As I parked for a fruitless Hen Harrier hunt at Stanwick a few hours later there was a Song Thrush singing beautifully despite the dreary weather at the time.
And this morning it was so gloomy that the landscape looked like a flat canvas of a dull scene rather than a view with depth. But in the distance there was a shining whiteness (even though the sun was completely hidden), like a blob of paint; a Little Egret perched in a tree far, far away but like a beacon in the gloom. There’s always a reason to get out and see things. And I hope to be doing just that over the Christmas break. I hope to be able to report on multiple Hen Harrier and Otter sightings from my local patch, but there will be something to see and hear in any case.
I hope you get out and enjoy nature too. Good luck!
But there will be a few blogs which will appear between now and the New Year: some news, some writing for you to enjoy and some reviews of the year.
Song Thrushes usually start singing in the second week of December.
Merry Christmas Mark. Thanks for another year of fighting for nature.
Does the Song Thrush dip its song these days and confuse us by altering calendars only known to it? Thus, distant memories of the bird’s song resumption are in early November. But recent records suggest this is now a few weeks later.
However, this could be due to the problem of ‘dipping’ – there are probably less Song Thrushes nowadays (doing their Hardy stuff). So they could still be on their usual schedule but there are too few of them singing for us to be in the right place at the right time. Moreover, there is that embarrassing dip in hearing ability with age.
Whatever the answer, Hardy’s ‘Darking Thrush’ must have been in tiptop condition to be able to give full song in those bleak conditions. It’s an individual that was surely well fed and in good spirits – an honest advertiser for any prospective and thoughtful mate on her way somewhere.
On which note, you can’t get much more vicariously festive than that.
Happy Christmas Mark. Best wishes for the new year. I hope that 2019 will be a great year for wildlife, both in terms of lots of sightings of interesting and exciting species and – more importantly – in terms of making all of nature more secure against the many and various threats it faces.