The Lincolnshire Bird Club

some birds are just destined to meet man at his worst -- after a BBS at Alkborough this morning I returned to the car park to find a team of contractors working for Severn Trent mowing all of the grass, vegetation and banks of the small pond by the car park in the middle of the breeding season; we do it 4 times a year so that the men from ST can walk to the pumping station without tripping over the nasty vegetation presumably but why they cut the banks and the compound where no-one ever walks is a mystery -- anyway over the racket of the strimmer and mower I thought I heard a singing Golden Oriole or was I having flash backs to my week in Hungary? trying to walk away from the din I heard it again but further away then again from the wood by the maze; then it stopped -- had I heard it at all? then 200m further on it started to sing constantly with a few interspersed cat calls from the wood on the scarp; scanning for ages I could not see it but a young lady who I had phoned managed to get underneath it ! I ran up a rather steep slope and through nettles and knee high scrub to get to the desired tree just as three farm vehicles, complete with pipping horns and a flock of sheep arrived at the gap in the trees and the oriole shut up presumably having decided that enough din was enough for one day and there were better trees somewhere else in the UK --