Smash and grab

I find myself in the curious position of apparently doing the least birding of anyone, but the easily most blogging. I guess Nick is due a rest after all his efforts last year. Anyhow, I managed a glorious hour on the patch today, half of which was spent unsuccessfully attempting to photograph Shoveler on Alex, before giving up in disgust and heading off to the Old Sewage Works in search of year ticks.

This turned out to be a much better option, and the Roding was a lot more productive (and far less grim...) than last time, with a Grey Wagtail at the Sluice, and a pair of Bullfinch a bit further on. I wasn't sure these latter actually existed, I have no idea what is different about January given I couldn't find any at all in December. But exist they do as I have managed to capture one of them on film - well, pixels. Not very well it has to be said, but nobody said photographing Unicorns was easy.

No sign of the Little Egret, but the water is still very high and the feeding area it likes basically isn't there at the moment. All in good time. My quick tour over, I headed back for lunch and lego, via an unfortunate Frog.