Coming up Rosy

My track record on Birds of a reddish hue has not been a good one of late (Rufous, Ruby and Scarlet are all ‘color non gratia’ currently) however today all that changed with a Lesser Redpoll perched up in the Waterworks N.R. it’s a small start but perhaps it bodes well for next week’s American Redstart.

A couple of Snipe were snoozing in one of the beds, a couple of Wigeon and Teal swam in another, some Magpies were trying to murder one of their own on the cobble track and a Vole/Shrew ran across my path, one day one of them will be slow enough to identify. The Rat I saw later posed no such problems.

I later walked around the Pitch’n’Putt and eventually strayed across the Friends Bridge and through the Middlesex Filter Beds. I know it’s not on the patch but hey! That’s the reckless sort of Birder that all my recent twitching has made me. Naturally that’s where my best Birds were, or would have been if I could have clinched them, a silhouetted dark Thrush that could have been a Ring Ouzel and a ‘something’ unseen calling ‘choowee’ in with a Tit flock. That’ll learn me to go off patch.

There was nothing much on the half of the marsh that I did, but on the back paddock there were a couple of White Wagtails, 20+ Linnet and c.10 Mistle Thrushes.

PW