Wren in doubt.....

Somehow dragged my sorry ass out of bed at silly o'clock today for the early morning shift at Lakenheath. Gropper came first, a lower and slower reel, and then when I turned the next corner the Savi's had dialled it up a notch - much quicker, and as a result sounded higher-pitched. It showed pretty nicely in the reeds through the scope, but far too far away to bother with the camera. First I've seen in East Anglia, and the first I've seen since 2009 - hence my interest in going up there today. A Golden Oriole sang briefly, suspect I won't get that on the yearlist many more times, and more's the pity.

I remember when I life-ticked Golden Oriole at Lakenheath - still the only place in this country that I've ever seen them - and they were seemingly all over the place. The actual moment of tickage came when three birds, two males and a female, flew in a rough circle above my head between two of the plantations before dropping back in. A short while later they repeated the feat. Since then (this was in 2008 I think) my views have got shorter, more often than not it's been down to a single bird, and today I didn't even see it. Very sad, but I understand a lot of people were marching about this in central London. One group were marching down Whitehall as they hate Orioles for some reason, but another group of more liberal people prevented them doing this - in a peaceful manner obviously, only to be branded traitors. Meanwhile a whole load of Badgers turned up nearby to protest about Buzzards killing cattle. I avoided London today, it was all too marchy  and protest for my liking - I enjoy the quiet life and moaning about things in the comfort of my own home. When I eventually did return to the capital I got stuck in traffic near Twickenham stadium due to Beyoncé. God knows what she was demonstrating about. The lack of recent lucrative gigs for tyrannical dictators? Shucks.

Anyhow, despite planning a day out with the camera, I felt so lacklustre today that I barely lifted the camera to my eye in ten hours. Basically everything was too far away and I couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. This Wren near the visitor centre at Lakenheath was the sole exception.