Morning Glory

Today I finished work at about 6:15pm. I reckon this is probably the latest in over nine years, and took me back to the days when a 6:30pm shift finish was obligatory. Or 6:30 am. Oh how I miss those happy times of rigid structure, when I wasn't able to give in to every seductive birding urge. Such freedom is not good for a person...

Mind you, it is dead handy. Especially when a Crane has roosted overnight on your patch and you want to go see it in the morning. It was really cold first thing, so I didn't rush to look for the Crane. Instead I counted Black-tailed Godwits on the estuary. I was just congratulating myself on a personal record tally of 60 (without having to include any Barwits or Redshank to bump it up) when a passing car slowed down and Steve's dad Ian leaned over to tell me that the Crane was showing. Sure enough, it was on view from the roadside at Stedcombe Vale. There are lots of pics on Steve's blog, so just a couple from me...

As you can see - very, very chilly. I was glad of the excuse to not bother any of my customers until a more civilised hour. According to a map and a ruler, the Crane was about 450+ metres away. This makes for perfectly decent scope views, but not such brilliant photos. When the sun caught them just right you could make out a little red blob on each side of the crown, but they're very hard to see in the pics. Although visible in the top photo when seriously enlarged, I don't reckon it'll show at this resolution. Never mind, here's some compensation. The time is 07:51 and our drive-by specialist James is captured for posterity actually on the patch...