#indoorstoomuch

The plan for today was to be at Aveley Bay for 5.30am to check for waders. I was there for about that however had forgotten to check the tides, as such no mud due to high tide meant no waders.   Rather disappointed i headed to the Stone Barges; they were empty bar a lot of Pigeon - what a waste of an early morning.   So, off to the Valley. Parking at Albyns farm i took a walk up and around Ingrebourne Hill and again nothing, this was turning out to be a disaster. A "charm" of Goldfinch, probably 35 birds on the hill Lowfield Marsh side was as good as it got......   I decided to check out how the Mute Swan 4ANA was doing. He was doing well, so was the Mrs and the two kids were growing up fast.   Enough was enough, now 7am, i was going home. I then bumped into another local birder, Gary. We had a chat, he had seen one of the recent Bearded Tits but had seen it from the housing side looking onto the fishery. This is a side I rarely go so with n...

So after all the Patch MEGA activity I headed back over the Valley later that evening for one reason, adding that Wigeon to the year list. I found it on the lake between lower scrape and paddock 2013 = 94 used under the creative commons licence - original by dracobotanicus

when you look at my list...... Last night I was out with Paul looking for the Pectoral Sandpiper over at Rainham Marshes. I'm glad to say after a search for a while we found it (well Paul did) in amongst a couple of Little Ringed Plover, Redshank and Curlew.   After a celebratory woot woot along with modern day high fives I was on 200; it was short lived   A Hobby  later   also came in lowish as well but disappeared pretty quickly.   In order for today, after last nights chat, was a list clean up; ok its my list but I don't want to be reaching 500 400 300 birds to be told I have 10 dodgy ducks on there; you know what birders are like. :)   used under the creative commons license - original by jac6.flicker   So my clean list total stands at 195 with one bird awaiting acceptance: Slaty-Backed Gull.

I went away for a week and upon arrival I saw news of the Osprey at Abberton Reservoir, with this being a life tick as well I was a little gutted, an Osprey is a bird I wanted to see and pretty much on my doorstep   Although my twitches are getting further afield I'm still either 1. to lazy or 2. not of the mental disposition to think going to Wales (or equivalent distance) for the day is a good idea. However I am being brain washed / shown the light trained, slowly by Messers Harvey , Hawky  & Monkey to put thoughts of distance from my mind and concentrate on the bird in question. Apparently slowly but surely my radius of travel will increase and so it seems.   However I was in Devon and with the family so to ask them to allow me to travel all the way home and back wasn't worth raising; plus i'm still at no.2 above. I would have to wait until the next one...   Luckily for me that Osprey seemed to like Abberton as it was stil...

The partners had a compliance meeting today so i found myself trudging to Puckeridge for it this morning; As i headed up the high street Swifts everywhere, low level flying along pavements doging vans and cars. I then came accros the colony hide out.   It was very busy, i parked up and watched for a good 5 minutes, this short video does not do it justice, the volume of birds in and out was vast.         UPDATE: 17.09.2014 Sadly, the owners have had home improvements done, this colony is no longer there

After a few local attempts over the Valley courtesy of Messrs Harvey & McGough, the Essex Birdwatching Site came up with goods locally to work;   Spotted Flycatcher x1 - St Nicholas's Church, Church Road, Kelvedon Hatch.   Now weirdly, the weekend before i was actually at this church for a christenning however we only entered the front of the church and never managed a wander around the graves.   So being 10 minutes away from the office it would have been rude not to have a go. Looking through the gates up the side of the church revealed only Robin , so knowing about Fane Hall next to the church i took a wander towards it.   This paid off with a male Bullfinch along with not one but two Spot Fly, after watching for a while as they went about they business i began to notice a patten; from local area, to wires then towards the rectory. Finally managing a view to the rectory gave views of a very full nest, X2 young Spot Fly on the ledge behin...