Birthday bonus

Well, I've made it to 59! Looking forward to a nice meal with the family tomorrow night.

Would the Birding gods shine on my day? The morning doggy exercise session produced nothing of note except to mention the obvious increase in Blackbirds. I received a text from Phil remarking on the same observation plus he'd had a number of Woodcock IOTS. On returning home for lunch I opened an e-mail from him with a few pics...

Courtesy of Phil Jones

Mid afternoon I positioned myself on Long Bank again in the hope of getting lucky with a SEO. The sun was shining brightly in a bitter SW? wind. The temperature had dropped to 4c and it wasn't looking good, especially when the cloud typically encroached from the west. I must admit that I'd lost my concentration by now and of course, that's when the Owl showed! It flew right past the car and along the ditch that heads off towards Sammy's. It was soon lost to view.

I then noticed a second bird by the Kilnsea Wetlands car park. I drove down but it too disappeared. Back up to Long Bank. After around 10 mins one appeared again and landed briefly on a fence post. Again it soon moved on. As I turned round another flew right over my head about 15 feet off the ground almost swerving to avoid me. A great moment. I even saw it twist it's head to take a look at this strange human!

Best of a bad bunch...it was 3.45...