It's always the same when I return from a trip, after the jet lag hits and the tiredness dissipates. That anti-climatic feeling. The birding's over. That high. The adrenaline rush of the chase, of finding good birds, of feeding off everyone's excitement at getting a lifer. A bird I've seen a dozen times takes on a whole new meaning entirely when it's a lifer for someone in my group. In fact that feeling is just as good as a lifer for myself. Having ADHD may well increase that feeling for me, I don't really know. My brain works differently to most people's, so I relive these moments over and over and not being able to quieten my brain from racing away with never-ending thoughts makes trying to sleep now a problem.
So it's just under 5 weeks until I go to Saudi Arabia, so when my ever-patient wife suggests we do the Japan cruise that's been at the back of my mind for a while.... I'm off, checking flights, how far to birding sites from the 7 shore stops, and can I really get up to the north of Okinawa in the time we've got ashore...? And then the realisation of the stupid cost of flights....... Everything comes crashing down again and we have to rethink. I begrudge being ripped off by these greedy airlines......
So it's time to breathe and recap on the past month. And what a whirlwind ride it's been. From Hooded Grebe to Diademed Sandpiper-Plover, Antipodean Albatross to Magellanic Plover, Magellanic Woodpecker to White-throated Cachalote, Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross to Ringed Teal, Curve-billed Reedhaunter and more...! But my overriding memory is of those King Penguins at Volunteer Point on the Falkland Islands.....
So I probably won't go to Japan just yet, but one day.... But don't tell the wife...!
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