scuppered....

Oh dear reader what a treat I had in store for you on Thursday! After a morning doing non-birding related activities I planned to head over to Rutland to meet mother dearest who was on the Egleton reserve for an afternoon taking in the avian delights of what is surely the best (or largest at least) nature reserve in central England. You lucky lucky readers were going to receive a blow by blow account of the trip, hopefully encountering such birds as the Yank Wigeon, the long staying WRS and maybe even a delightful SEO over lagoon 1 in the fading light and drooling over the collection of aweful brilliant photos taken.....such a plan wasn't to be however as this happened en-route:

Not an ideal situation

So the birdmobile is dead. Well not officially yet, but it doesnt take a genius to predict that it will be declared dead in the near future. Badtimes. This was my first ever car and lasted the 7 years and 60,000 miles of ownership like a true trooper and has been the main method of transportation for the many birding trips I've been on in the last two years. Rene the Renault may you rest in peace.....
Anyway, hire car (provided by the other persons insurer cus it was their fault innit) has now arrived and distractions such as a friends wedding (congratulations Mr and Mrs Francis!) are now out of the way so I can go birding again! To be fair I could have easily walked to the "local patch" - a place I haven't visited since about August, but that idea was quickly rejected on the grounds that its crap and im lazy.
So I think i'll start off again this afternoon with some SEO's! It does seem to be shaping up to be a good year for them, certainly the best since I've started birding so I plan to binge on them like a hungry shmackhead whilst they're around incase a pesky cold snap makes them bugger off like last year!


EDIT: Back from owling and am pleased to report 5+ Short eared Owl and a single Little Owl were seen. Even more pleasing was the total lack of people in Golfs ignoring give way signs and ploughing into innocent motorists. Most pleasing of all was the fact that my good non-birding friends Hayley and Jack came along for the ride too and had only ever seen 3 wild owls ever and thus trebled their owl encounterage in one afternoon! By my estimates I'd need to see around 750 owls in a single day to achieve the same feat! And as for Mr Riddle....he'd need to see at least 6.4billion owls I reckon.