Did we miss out?

The Safari had a mixed day today. Patch two early doors wasn't much cop - very dull but surprisingly crystal clear if that makes sense. Only the usual Common Scoters and a couple of Great Crested Grebes were visible on the water. Overhead single 'alba' and Grey Wagtails went past.

Of greatest note was how madly mild it was, at 06.00 we'd been out with Frank without a jacket as the outside thermometer was showing 13.9C...our average daily maximum for October  here is 14C!

We had a job to do for a local school which involved being outside, we had a redundant compost bin to dismantle and load up for removal to the school at the close of play.

That required the Land Rover being brought round to where we were working. We got out and shut the door - as it banged shut we saw a tiny green bird shoot across from the nearby scrub to the boundary hedge...thing is what caught our attention was the contrasting yellowy rump. Wow that looked interesting!!! Immediately we dashed the 10 yards to the hedge and had a few walks up and down both the inside and outside paths to no avail. A few Dunnocks and a Blackbird but nothing smaller or greener.

We did our demolition job and then had to go back inside but come lunchtime we were out again with camera and bis this time but again to no avail.

We then went to the wall without the scope so there was the opportunity to get some pics of the Starlings taking the tiny flies off the wall only today they weren't. So we had a quick look on the beach instead and snapped away at a few gulls.

On the lower seaweedy slopes of the wall we had four Meadow Pipits, no Buff Bellied Pipits, no Olive Backed Pipits, three Pied Wagtails, a White Wagtail and a two Grey Wagtails all in a little bit of a flockette and most unusual of all a Magpie, rarely see them on Patch 2 at all but to see one poking around in the seaweed making its way steadily southwards along the wall was a bit of a surprise.
In the afternoon Young Un AB arrived to give the hedges a good going over and we joined him for a few minutes. Again no joy although after we'd had to go back inside he did have a Robin that we'd not come across there earlier in the day. His best find however wasn't a bird but this Angle Shades roosting up - no is this a migrant or not? We don't do enough mothing here to know if they are resident or not. Really ropey light conditions led to a pretty poor pic.

So what was the mystery bird? This pic drawn at lunchtime is sort of a cross betweeen what we saw and an oven-ready chicken in flight. Note that we didn't see any head pattern, don't think we saw it's head as it darted away from us and we probably didn't see any wing bars the wings were just a blurry blur but that yellow rump stood out a mile!
The colours here aren't quite accurate as we were limited by what coloured pencils still had points in the box of crayons the cafe's have for the visiting children.

Answers on a virtual postcard please.
Where to next? We've got two large groups of very small children exploring the beach tomorrow - wonder what they'll find.
In the meantime let us know what's disappearing in to the hedgerows in your outback.