Birding Braunie

Hmmm? I guess you can see a pattern forming here can’t you? And you’d be right too. Writing a blog was easy when I only ventured out once or twice a month birding but now, as a freelance chappie, I find I have quite a few pockets of time in my week and rather than watch Antiques Road Trip or other such banal TV or even do any housework, I find myself suddenly in a local nature reserve asking myself 'How did I get here?' So my point is, I would have to use the pockets of spare time I have, to write the blogs that record the events of that spare time and thus, I wouldn’t have any spare time to write about anything other than writing non-existent blogs! See? So I save them up for moments like this. The month kicked off in the Lee Valley on a dark mid-morning (a feature of most of my ventures out) and a 2 hour walk around the south part of Fishers Green covering Hooks Marsh and Hall Marsh. I had a low-flying Red Kite over Hooks but failed to focus the telephoto on it. My lens,...

Tomorrow we hit the Spring Equinox when we can all spend hours staring at the oven clock trying to remember how the damn thing works so that we can move forward with our lives. Lee Valley is a bit like my oven clock to some extent. Today I stared at it trying to will it forward into spring so that I could get out of the chilling wind and see the clouds part bringing down rays of warming ultra violet. It didn’t start well as rain sprinkled down from a flat concrete sky. I probably should have stayed in bed for an extra hour so as to balance the one I will lose tomorrow. Still, you know me... I took my car to the Hooks Marsh car park and walked along Walton’s Walk getting a small blast of spring from a couple of enthusiastic Chiffchaffs. All the regular chaps were about; Chaffinches, Robins, Goldfinches, Song Thrushes and a bucket of Blackbirds that threw themselves at me. I ignored most of these and made my way to Friday Lake. There had been a Redhead Smew here for some while and if...