The world disappeared for a while there this morning

The Safari went to work in dense fog today meaning a Patch 2 look was out of the question.Instead we decided to fumble our way round the work's garden in the hope for a Siberian waif n stray or two. As expected we drew a blank but did find a flighty Chiffchaff working its way along the back hedge. A couple of Robins ticked, a Dunnock peeped and a Blackbird worked the dew sodden grass for worms but our overall impression was there'd been an over-night clear out rather than an arrival.

Waiting for the kettle to boil mid-morning gave us another opportunity to have a shuffy at the most likely spot for something to be hidden in. This is just outside the office window and to be honest we weren't expecting much as we hadn't heard anything other than the local House Sparrows chirruping. The had dissipating fog had left a heavy dew settled on the Tamarisk bushes and was catching the morning sun rather nicely though. All very arty again for WB's benefit.

A truncated lunchtime came, we had front desk cover duties today, so again although the fog was long gone we decided on a garden mooch. This was more successful with no fewer than three Chiffchaffs being found and as likely as not the early morning one was long gone by now so we're settling for four of them on the record sheet. Two close flocks of Pink Footed Geese (P2 #68) flew over just inland of us totaling about 60 birds. Still not a sniff of a Yellow Browed Warbler, we did two circuits just to make sure.

Back in the office we heard a very rare sound, the rattle of a Magpie - only the second record of the year. Another brew later and we saw it hopping around on the grass before a dog walker flushed it and it flew off high over the houses to the south. While we were enjoying the rarity of such a common bird another skein of Pink Feet was heard, this time coming in off the sea directly overhead and then turning southwards down the coast. Annoyingly they were constantly changing position as the flock turned and we could only estimate about 80.

The sunny warm afternoon had several butterflies on the wing in the garden with minimum totals of three Red Admirals, a Small Tortoiseshell, a Small White and a couple of Silver Ys. The bumble bee's nest under the Phormium we had to abandon a couple of weeks ago is still active too.

So nothing Siberian found again, maybe we should have taken a longer walk up to the more attractive habitat of the bushes along the railway line, there's more YBW attracting Sycamores there too.

Back at Base Camp young OC was soon banging on the door to see if he had indeed been written up in lights as promised. We had to make hoim wait as Wifey had an errand to run that needed two of us but once back we took the laptop out and let him read yesterday's rubbish. A whoop of "YES" was let out when he got to the bottom of the post and read his initials and an "Awesome" when we told him it's been read by people all over the world. What we rote was true and exactly as it happen cos little OC confirms "Yeah, it was just like that!" - You wouldn't believe how many more times he claims he saw it yesterday evening though - nods as good as a wink to an excitable blind horse!

Where to next? An early start, maybe to somewhere new to hunt down those pesky YBWs in oddball coastal places.

In the meantime let us know who's happy to confirm the wildlife sightings in your outback