More on the needletail

Yours truly with the needletail, videograb with thanks to Dan Pointon

"There we were on the hard shoulder of the M6, a couple of hundred yards short of Gretna services. The blue lights were still flashing through the back window as Dan continued his futile attempts to start the car. We were due to fly out from Inverness in about 6 hours time. In our minds, though no-one dared speak it, were thoughts of the air fare going down the drain and the chance of a Needletail going with it."

The above is the opening paragraph from John Pegden's fantastic write-up of our day out yesterday. You can read the whole thing here - it's well worth it:
http://talesfromswallowfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/needletail-highs-and-lows-of-twitching.html

I've also co-written an illustrated piece for the BirdGuides webzine that details much of the day from both mine and Alan Tilmouth's experiences of the day. You can read (if a subscriber) by clicking here. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a couple more photographs showing the upperside:

...and the underside:

The trip was rounded off with these dudes - there were loads of them flowering at Stornoway airport, though I can't really decide what they are - Northern Marsh or Early Marsh?