Birding Braunie

Excited. You know that feeling you get when the ends of your fingers tingle? Well mine were ringing in my ears. It may well have been the lovely Valentine’s Day I spent with the missus in Sevenoaks at The Vine restaurant or it possibly was the fact that I had a few hours on Sunday to nip over to Rainham to a) try to boost the Wildgoose Chasers bird list total which seems to be lagging behind most other teams and b) test the 7d and Sigma 150-500mm in the field, together, for the first time – now that’s exciting. Well it is for me. It was nice to bump into Tom Bell with his images of the Ring-necked Paras feeding off his hand. Brave man. I signed in with Howard and the reserve seemed pretty quiet people-wise; only bird action was a female Blackcap (list tick) in the artificial orchard (apples on sticks) by the centre. I also added Goldcrest, Stock Dove, Great Crested Grebe and Golden Plover to the year list but still can’t locate a GSW! Coot Lapwing, Golden Plover and Shovele

One of those crazy Sundays with a quick trip to Nazeing Meads (heavily under-watched) for WeBS followed by a day volunteering at the Bittern Watchpoint. Nazeing was a little quieter than the past few months tallies. There were still 6 Goldeneye about but only 4 Goosander where as previously I had recorded 12 on two occasions over the winter. Goldeneye Drake Goosander With the mud well and truly splattered up my regulation LVP Cargo pants, I scurried over to Fishers Green for a day of patient Bittern baiting. On top of this, I was also getting to grips with my new (albeit secondhand) Sigma 150mm – 500mm lens which seems to be performing pretty well in the gloom at Nazeing. Normal service was resuming at Seventy Acres Lake. None had seen the Bittern early doors but a couple of Water Rail were doing the usual warm-up act. From the bridge, a lone Muntjac clip-clopped over the bridge without any Troll appearing. It then reappeared from the hide giving good

Yin and Yang. Heaven and Hell. The phrase polar opposites seems to be quite apt for me after a day in the Bittern Watchpoint yesterday. Actually, polar vortex is closer to the truth. The day had started with my car warning me of ice – like I needed to be told! still, it’s a caring car so i mustn’t be rude about it. With freezing rain sliding off the windscreen, I drove over to the Lee Valley Park. By the time I got there, the rainy sleet was slowly petering out. I have been looking for the regular Yellowhammers now for a few weeks and the possibility that there might be signs of these bright buntings (not academically you understand) was too much to resist. Greylags in motion. There were clattering of Jackdaws up at the farm and mutations of Fieldfare and Redwing hanging about outside the open barn as if they were having a crafty fag. Their guilt is magnified by the way they scatter at even my distant presence. They are quite funny really. Filter-tipped Fieldfare The