Desert Wheatear. Good things come to those who wait.
Last Sunday, reports came in of a Desert Wheatear having been sighted at Abberton reservoir in Essex. This only the second recored of this bird in Essex with the last one being in 1987. The trouble with this birding lark (poor pun) is that I have to work for a living and can’t drop everything to swan off (and another) to see a rare bird. So I had a tantalising wait each day to see if the bird had been reported and then if it had disappeared. As each day went by, people were posting amazing images of the wheatear and even the BBC got in on the act with a news report on it, telling me it would probably be off as soon as it could because it would be able to tell it was too far north by the shortening days. Great I thought. So it came down to Saturday (today) and with my good bro also planning to visit the site, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. The early morning air was cold with a threatening swathe of thin rain clouds making the prospect of driving the 50 miles for a pote