Bearded Tit Saves The Morning

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 nothing better to do I took a spin round to Lake Avenue.

used under the creative commons license - original can be viewed here

It was the longest time I have ever spent looking into to those reeds and surrounding vegetation. Two hours of walking the lake both sides from end to end.

I was just about to head off home for the second time today when I had one last check down past the New Builds; under the rather lethal bramble and just before the fallen tree there is a small view point over the reeds; it was here that after no time a rather perky looking female popped into view, quite frankly it could have possibly heard my rather over excited YES! as it didn't hang around for too long and headed back down and out of sight.

A great bird to see within the Valley and i'm sure will be seen again next year, after all why wouldn't they......