Woolly hat and gloves required

The Safari didn't get out as early as we might have liked although Frank demanded to go out at 05.15!!! My was it cold then! Needless to say we didn't stay out long and went straight back to bed.

We got out on safari mid morning but the wind was still very cold and had picked up a good bit. A search for yesterday's Whinchat proved fruitless and we met CR who had just been similarly unsuccessful! Didn't look good. We then spotted PL who had been on site a while but had little to show for it. He went one way and we went another then met up again he having found another Whinchat but it was flighty. He went off alone again and found three together but these were flushed by an ignorant dog walker who flushed the birds while he was obviously trying to get a pic - or at least he was obviously trying to get a pic of something on the path between himself and the dog walker.

We went down for a look but found nothing of note and decided to give it up as a bad job. 

The wetland nearby has a stunning show of Water Crowfoot at the moment

 And there are still a few Marsh Marigold flowers to be found too.

A heavy prolonged shower after we'd been home a couple of hours tempted us to go back out again to see if anything had been forced down.

As far as we could tell it hadn't! In fact it was so 'interesting' we had to enjoy more tractor action, this time a New Holland TM125 pulling a four furrow plough - not over the Lapwing nests we hoped.

No Mediterranean Gulls in the flock :-(

Tried a few Swallow in flight shots without much success and no this isn't a Red Rumped Swallow - apparently one was reported not so far away the other day. There were at least five Sand Martins, three Swifts, later four, but no House Martins.

Leaving the hide the lady who was also in there spotted something move on the path in front of us. We looked down and saw this juvenile Short tailed Field Vole. It seemed disorientated and cold but soon revived once we'd held it in cupped hands for a couple of minutes. after a few mug shots we put it back in the grass and it scurried off in the depths of the greenery like a rocket.

A tragedy waiting to happen was seen on the way back to the Land Rover - we thought it was a Helium balloon at first heading out to sea but looking at the pic we can now see the flame of a Chinese lantern

Dohh a Chinese lantern - even worse than a Helium balloon in that it has a wire frame and strings to entangle marine life as well as filling their guts with indigestible pseudo-jellyfish. we really hate the totally necessary things!!!

Where to next? Back to work and Patch 2 tomorrow...will we get any of the Black Terns that failed to drop in to the nature reserve in the showers.

In the meantime let us know what didn't drop in to your outback.