Good Day - Bad Day

The day started with a plan to get some shots of Magpies building their nest just down the road followed by some sound recording and filming of skylarks before giving Nick an alarm call and heading out further afield for Snipe, Curlew, Lapwings, possible Lagomomorphs and maybe some late calling frogs.. The first indication that things were not going to go to plan was the lack of Magpies at their nest. Whilst waiting for the elusive corvids, I realised that the wind was getting up and a return home would be necessary to pick up a heavy-duty wind-shield for my microphone. After wasting ages turning the house upside down trying to find a mis-placed bit of kit, I eventually got under way and went to collect ND.
First stop was that quagmire known as Soil Hill. Yes, there were plenty of Skylarks around, and some were even performing song-flights, but their song was lost amidst the roar of the wind. The chill factor was decidedly Arctic up there, so we headed west to check out some better locations.
Stopping off at various locations en route, we eventually ended up on the Widdop Road which provided the same difficult filming opportunities as the other sites due to Arctic winds. Frustratingly, there were plenty of birds around, especially Curlew and Lapwing. It was whilst pulling in to the side of the road to check out some fields that ND noticed a gull in the distance....or was it? Sitting in the car, we waited for it to re-appear over the horizon in the distance. When it re-appeared we scrambled out of the car, Nick getting his scope on it, and me struggling to find the distant Osprey in the viewfinder of my camera. Whilst the bird was struggling against the wind, I was struggling against the laws of physics and my car was succumbing to the laws of gravity. What was that blue object moving at the periphery of my vision? Oh, that's just my car rolling down-hill. Errrrrr....... Luckily, I had seen all those Starsky and Hutch films in the '70s, so knew how to perform the "chase-after-runaway-vehicle-jump-in-and-wrench-on-the-handbrake" stunt. And, yes, I can run that fast.
So, now that I had saved my car from impending doom and the Osprey had departed for Lancashire, we decided to chuck everything in the boot, spin the car round and whizz across the border into Lancashire. Once over the border, we relocated the Osprey but I still failed to squeeze off any footage as it was too distant.
Having had enough of freezing winds, we headed for lower ground to visit one or two more sites before retiring for the day.
During the course of the day I failed to get any decent footage of my target species, failed to get any sound recordings of my target species, failed to get any footage of a bonus Osprey on two occasions and nearly trashed my car. However, we did get to see a passage Osprey and several other good raptors. I also managed to film a pair of Woodpigeon displaying, copulating and preening which I will upload to thebaldibis channel in due course.