Bleached blob birdin’

The immense forces at play stress the tectonic plates and they shift and buckle under the almost inconceivable power; mountain ranges rise and fall.
And still the Spoonbill sleeps.
Dinosaurs evolve from the primordial slime, and stride across the earth; a Tyrannosaurus Rex sneaks giggling into the kitchen to pillage the fridge before a blinding flash of light signals a terminal tumble down the snakes and ladders board of extinction events.
And still the Spoonbill sleeps.
A Chimp finishes “Hamlet” and wanders off from the typewriter in search of bananas and Typhoo tea.
And, yup, you guessed it, still the Spoonbill sleeps.

To be fair the adult Spoonbill did lift its head once or twice in the wibbly wobbly haze of what was already shaping up into a scorcher at Marshside before 9am this morning, but blink and you’d miss it.
Which was easily done as the bird was snoozing distantly north east of Polly’s Pool with Canadas and Shelduck, a long range white blob in the shimmer.
Occasionally I imagined I could see its apricot breast band, but most of the time the bird was hunched up, its crest blown back over its crown by the north east breeze like the Pennslyvania Avenue orange loonball’s comb-over when caught in an unexpected gleefully malevolent gust.
I ‘scoped it for a time (it felt like infinity), and tried a few ill-advised long range pictures from the back bank.
On reflection keeping your head down and shutting your eyes tight these days may not be the daftest of policies…
Evening light and watching from Marine Drive may present better viewing opportunities.
Elsewhere a check at a site spared the Highways Dept mowers by specific request revealed Bee Orchids now flowering, but the heat and drought means most plants looked washed out and stunted with burnt leaves.

Always good to enjoy orchids on the local patch though…