All's well that ends well. It's been around my neck (I'll let you work that one out, along with the above title) for some time now, but finally - in a howling northerly, with horizontal rain more akin to big sea-watching day in November - the weight was emphatically lifted. Where before I can easily claim some seriously bad fortune, this time, quite the opposite, although it was perilously close....
With the bird heading out to sea seconds before I arrived, I was already grinding my teeth and spitting obscenities as I huffed and puffed up to the viewpoint, but miraculously, it swung back around, drifted slowly and stylishly beneath us and through the auk assemblages, and disappeared - without apparently returning.
Despite the crappy conditions and poor light (ISO 3 million or so) my non-fancy camera worked hard and did the job pretty well considering.
With further thanks to the birding gods for once again rewarding my much less unhealthily insular, much more rich and varied credo this year - long may it continue.
