Tuesday, February 12, 2013
It's a rum do when the only bird that presents a photographic opportunity is a Cetti's warbler.
There were three shelduck on the Eton Wick flood, and the two white-fronted geese were still there. A rather pale Egyptian goose flew in and stood in the water, uttering a rasping bark over and over again. A little egret sat hunched on the old willows in the boundary hedgerow. A water rail dashed from one stand of cover to another on the far side of the Roundmoor Ditch.
Farther down the ditch behind the concrete garages, the brambles and ivy were alive with small birds. There were at least five chiffchaffs (two of them "pale" individuals) and a Cetti's was heard but not seen. Two reed buntings were busy along the bank, and a bunch of long-tailed tits moved upstream bringing at least three goldcrests with them.
Best of all, two green sandpipers came flying over me calling, and went down on the edge of the common flood: a welcome sight and sound on another cold, grey, depressing day.
// posted by Christine @ 9:20 AM 
