Blue

While dipping the Bedfordshire Red-rumped Swallow yesterday, in a doomed late evening chase, our anguish was enhanced by news of a Blue Fulmar turning up in Peterborough. When I got home and checked the pic on the Internet, the bird looked in pretty grim condition. My dreams last nght were mixed visions of sick Fulmars bouncing into the banks of the lake at Eye Green LNR and of glorious Fulmars sweeping around on stiff wings.
I was up at first light and at Eye Green at 6.15am (1.4.07). It took about a minute before I noticed something Fulmar-grey, like a flannel on the edge of the lake. It was it, wings out face down in the water - a gonner.
I really wanted to take it and keep it and give it to the Peterborough Museum. But we don't even have a freezer. Instead I fished it out and tried to photograph it. The fact that its eye was open was a little unnerving, and the 'lice' around its throat didn't exactly endear themselves to me – were they from the water or the bird's own parasites?
A sad end, following the destinies of the two other Fulmars I know to have occurred in the PBC area in the last few years (one was found dead at Holme Fen, and one was moribund at Langtoft).
My first Blue Fulmar made me sad.