Give me back the mornings

I miss having even 30 minutes of time before each working day to check even a couple of parts of my patch. I've been busy and am desperate to cover some ground, perhaps check for a Firecrest in a few spots, a Goosander going over, but most of all a year tick like a Woodcock in the dying light at Lavell's.

Some chances will come, but not so many I can afford to be complacent.

Today I had about 2 hours and had a look over LFGP for the first time in weeks, 72 Teal, 4 Snipe, 1 Little Egret, a handful of Wigeon and Shoveler. A Peregrine over quite low, appeared to compact to be a female.

Back on 22nd November I was escorting a Thames Water grant partner around the new diggings and looked up to see 160+ Golden Plover over pretty high up in the brisk windy conditions.

Since then it has all been about Hawfinch in the car park field, which show well each day and did so for me this morning too. I could never get bored watching this species and know this is a lifetime one off event.

Will we get one more year tick, a lot depends on the weather. Curlew have shown up in frozen conditions more than once. Firecrest may be out there already, Smew is random, but possible as are White-fronted Goose, Scaup, Merlin and a handful of other now scarce species.