Thank You for Luck

I just thought I’d say that. I don’t care who gets it, so long as it’s around. Obviously, it’s nicer when I get it and I do, all the time. It all started with being born white, middle class, English. There’s a lot of luck in that, so there’s a lot to be thankful for. Even little things, like one that just cropped up: thank you to Claudia for lending me her Paul Auster. Without that I’d miss loads of cultural references.

Thanks also for the shore larks and purple sandpiper in Norfolk, which took my round-the-world twelve months list up to 662. And, added to them, the hen harrier and red-breasted merganser pushing the Norfolk list back to the top of my English counties at 149. And at RSPB Titchwell, the obliging black-tailed godwit that allowed me this pretty crappy shot.

Maybe I’ll even, in time, get round to thanking the ever-present gales that made two days of birding such hard work. Perhaps they blew in the shore larks?

Related posts:

1. 145 Somerset Birds in 2010
2. Woodchat Shrike, Chipping Sodbury
3. By Train to RSPB Bempton Cliffs