No golf puns here

I was on the way back from Scotland to Dorset when I heard about the Cream-coloured Courser on a golf course in Herefordshire. From the M6 it would take an extra 2 hours to get there and another 2 back. Assuming an hour to find and photograph the bird, this would delay my ETA home by 5 hours from about 7 to about 12. Past bedtime for my boys, before which I promised I would try to get home. To prove I'm not a total deadbeat Dad, temptation was resisted. Had I not seen the long-staying bird on the Isles of Scilly (pictured), however, I suspect I would have been a very bad Dad indeed. We see this bird every year now on our annual holiday to St Mary's where it can be found in the Museum, mounted rather unceremoniously on a stick, like a dishevelled, off-White Chocolate Magnum. They should start a fund for a taxidermist to restore it to something closer to its former glory. Worth a quid from everyone who saw it, surely?

Cream-coloured Courser, St Mary's golf course 2004