Stuttering to a stop

Hard work again down on the patch with very little to show for it.  It's been the old curate's egg again this year: many of the warblers may have gone, but they have now been replaced by returning Reed Bunting, Linnet and increased sightings of Chaffinch, Pied Wagtail and the movement of Meadow Pipit. I have a sense that something is going to give: perhaps a Richard's Pipit, Wood Lark, Ring Ouzel looks good for this weekend.  While we wait there are still interesting birds about, but as per I've fluffed the IDs. 

Last week it was two interesting warbler, one a Chiffchaff that was enormous compared with its fellows and the other a brown job that I saw fleetingly in the Alex scrub. Yesterday a bunting, or maybe even two, first flushed from the pub scrub when it flew over the copse there and on to the south side. By the time I got there it had obviously been re-booted by a jogger and a dog walker. The same or another bird was working its way around the birch on the south side of Alex later.  I should have nailed it there, but time was against a long vigil.  I got a strong sense of a greenish rump from one flit between the trees, a darker scapular area and lighter tertials to primaries.  There had been a Reed Bunting I'd heard knocking around the area, but this was no reedy b! Needless to say, I couldn't refind it today.

The prospects for the next few days/weeks are still exciting even if the results have been a bit lacking. Sunday or Monday looks good for a Yellow-brow, or, heaven-forbid, a Red-breasted Flycatcher, I may even get down the park this weekend.  Steady now!

For five days I carried the wight round my neck that is the camera without taking a shot.  The weather for pictures has been truly awful (so have the results), but today it got a lot better - just couldn't find any birds.