Slow

The weekend has not exactly lived up to expectations here in Wanstead. The highlight of three hours on the patch on Friday was a single Swallow. Other than building numbers of Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, this was the sole migrant seen. Poor.

Saturday was no better. I found a lone non-singing Willow Warbler soon after getting out, and for the rest of the three hours saw no other migrants at all. Silent Willow Warblers are pretty pointless in my opinion, they are not why I go birding. 

So to Sunday then. Another couple of hours produced......wait for it...... Nothing. Nada. Zip. Really? Correct, not a single migrant managed to distract me from what was otherwise a very pleasant stroll around the patch. We are a third of the way through April, it should not be like this.

And today? Well today it is raining so I have been indoors. Frankly indoors has approximately the same number of migrants as outdoors at the moment, so it is not as if I am missing out. Nick is out there somewhere getting soaked and has managed a single Wheatear. Tempting? No, I am quite happy where I am.

So that was my weekend. Full of promise, extremely short on delivery. It is all very well saying I should live somewhere that is good for birding, or that I should go to the coast more often. The fact is I live here and I cannot currently change that. That being the case I could spend four hours in the car, spend £50 on fuel, and head to the coast, but it is just a massive hassle and I am not in the mood. I would rather moan about how poor urban birding is instead. A shame that a block of four days has gone to waste in the birding sense but there you have it.

Massive stinking piles of chickpeas and rotting vegetables are just fine however, go right ahead. And people wonder why we have a rat probem. Pffff.