Saturday 13 October 2012

Rice at Whitley Bay

Got a text from The Guv this morning - Paddyfield at St Mary's!  I knew we'd had a load of rain and thought that was a very enterprising thing to do, use the excess precipitation to grow oriental cereal crops.  Genius!

And so off to see this phenomenon, and within 15 minutes, I was there.  With half a dozen or so other oryzaphiles, we waited, and waited.

The quarry had been seen just before I got there.  And we waited some more and then voila, a 'Paddyfield Warbler' (note the quotation marks').  Life tick!

And like the Sermon on the Mount, still they came, and soon the numbers had swelled to over 40.  And then the bird was re-spotted.  And Sir Sometimes and Duke Dunn, both of Cramlington, had images.  And the Lord said, 'Study the photos, for it may be that the Paddyfield is a Blyth's Reed.'

And as I type, the questions is: Paddyfield or Blyth's or Paddyfield and Blyth's?  All I know is whatever Mr Malloy captured using the medium of megabits is what I will list, and at this point it's a Blyth's.

So come on Sometimes, post the photos!!