trying too hard?

Time to accept that in terms of my patch
1 I have missed Willow Warbler for the year and
2 I am not competent to find my own Garden Warbler by song.
So scraping the barrel for patch ticks (see http://patchworkchallenge.blogspot.co.uk for why) had a wee scan for Black Brant.  No joy, but here's what I take to be a Pale-bellied Brent Goose from amongst the circa 400 Bark-bellied Brents hoovering up my brother's barley crop.

Happy day

First Hobby of the spring at about 8:30PM against the setting sun.   Strange to reflect that it will be four long months before hopefully there are juveniles bouncing about the old dead oak..  

too much time on my hands

Happy day- I retired from the London commute yesterday and on my first morning of freedom had the pleasure of 2 Wood Sandpipers at Cattawade, long range digipic of one of them here captures the moment.

showing some leg

These godwits- still fun.  Here's how much extra leg a Blackwit has over a Bartail- enough to accommodate a cluster of bling.

now you see them

Bar-tailed Godwits sticking out like sore thumbs yesterday amongst Black-tailed Godwits and then merging into the crowd with Grey Plovers today.  Wobbly digipics in a blustery spring gale, but catching the moment nonetheless.

Bar-tailed Godwit, Stour Estuary

roots

I had a happy drop-in to Rye Meads RSPB the other day.  Just happened to be rolling past with an hour to spare and no bins, so hired some very not-Swarovski optics for a princely £1.50 and lo- Kingfishers. Mostly they were doing the standard thing of sitting on posts, super-close and looking like a million photos we have all seen- nice but samey.  But upstream was a much more interesting
tangle of roots where a tree had been grubbed out and eventually after a lot of wishful thinking and thought transference, the bird got the message and whizzed upstream to just where I wanted it..

Kingfisher on roots, Rye Meads

a big yawn

This spring's resolve is to spend a bit less time hosing down canvasses gone wrong, a bit more time looking and drawing.

So here's a fluffed-up Ringed Plover on the roost that caught my eye with two beautifully curved toes to keep its balance and a big contented yawn.  Possibly I should have drawn the bill wider open to show that it was yawn and not a call, but that would be too close to cartooning.

Ringed Plover, Stour estuary