Birding Braunie

It must be 8 years since I last went to RSPB’s Ouse Washes. I wasn’t able to get there for the Northern Harrier but thought I might get a few of the species missing from my year list here. Specifically, Tree Sparrow, Short-eared Owl, Bewick’s Swan and Hen Harrier. Wrong. I did find one Bewick’s Swan among the hundreds of Whooper Swans that honked back and forth from the Washes to the blackest fields you’ll ever see. Whooper Swans Quantity, not quality was the order of the day. Thousands of Lapwing, Golden Plover and Wigeon grazed on the islands across the Wash, only taking to the air when an interested Marsh Harrier glided through. In the hedgerows that dissect the fields, only Corn Buntings were found. No Tree Sparrows among them either but there was a Canary of all things. Not sure I can count that though. Very bad photo coming up.... That whitish blob in the middle dummy! Things could have been better. I think I forgot to mention that i had a hangove...

Okay, I’ve just proved to myself that I’m not a bona fide twitcher. If I was, I’d have been bashing elbows with all the other birders of Herts, Essex and London over at Stockers Lake, Herts, for the Little Bittern. Instead, I went to Rye Meads also in Herts for Kingfishers and Kestrels. Okay, the Kingfishers didn’t show so just the Kestrels then and a couple of Green Sandpipers if you will. Rye Meads is nice (nice cool not nice twee). It’s been a few years since I’ve walked the boards there but I like what they’ve done with the place. I really wanted to shoot Kingfishers and Rye Meads is the place to do it. My problem was timing. The Kingfisher pair are on a clutch of eggs so activity is low to say the least. I gave it a couple of hours but no change of place between the male and female happened in that time so I gave up. All was not lost though as five Kestrel young, almost at the stage of flight took turns to either defecate out of their nest box or have a gander at what the outs...