Success!

Finally, a breakthough! Approaching Long Wood this morning I learned I had missed another Brambling, a single bird that had called only once and disappeared northwards. I had seen a few silent finches heading that way on my approach, but even I decided that having one of them as a Brambling was a step too far. Happily another two birds zipped through a few minutes later; I was too busy talking to actually hear them, but they were helpfully pointed out as being Brambling by a couple of the guys - nice of them. Perhaps I'll get my own tomorrow? Not that I care anymore of course, Brambling hold no interest for me now until January - unless there is a particularly showy one of course, but even then the light levels need to improve significantly. I've barely picked up a camera since Shetland, there has been almost no point.

Apart from some Great Crested Grebes at Canary Wharf that is, which coincided with some rare sunshine and my lunch break which I could actually take. Most of them I have uploaded to my other website, but here are a couple just to break the monotony of text-only posts recently. It can be pretty bad when I not only have nothing to say, but also have nothing to upload.

I have nothing else to offer. My life since returning from Shetland has involved work, more work, and family stuff. Birding has not so much taken a back seat, as been left off the bus altogether. This is a great shame, but what can you do, there is only so much time in the day. The good news is that the clocks change this weekend, which should mean that I get an additional hour on the patch in the mornings. I expect that the birds will realise this however, and wait an extra hour before showing themselves....