Sunday September 7

A good date and good weather for birding, what could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot as it turned out.

The background whinge is that my bad back, which I usually manage to walk off, plagued me all morning. Dave and I were joined by John Yardley, and we soon spotted lots of passerines on seed-heads and in the hedgerow bordering the old ridge field (now full of saplings). These were mostly Goldfinches and Yellowhammers, but in amongst them were three Whinchats, both Lesser and Common Whitethroats, two Wheatears, and a dozen or so Meadow Pipits.

Nothing came close enough to try for a photograph, a theme which would continue all day.

The thing which really put a damper on things occurred while we were in this field. Dave had moved about 50 yards from John and me, and after a while I heard him shout. I looked in his direction, and scanned the skies beyond him. A large bird was circling on drooping wings. If that's what he is shouting about he must be thinking Osprey, I thought. My scope was already up, but I struggled to get on it. Eventually I did find a large bird circling on drooping wings. An immature large gull miles away. We joined Dave and found that he had indeed been looking at the "original" large bird and was quite keen on it. But after turning to shout to us a couple of times he had lost it. I am not certain that the gull I eventually got on was the same as the bird we had independently first seen. We scanned and scanned but whatever it was was now history.

We decided it must have been the gull, but I think we both had that sickening feeling in the pits of our stomachs known as a nagging doubt.

The flash proved disappointing. Teal numbers were back to the usual 30 - 40, Green Sandpipers numbered just three, and we could only see one Snipe (John had seen more earlier this morning).

That was about it. In the absence of any bird photo opportunities I took one of a distinctive looking fungus.

Needless to say I don't know what it is, but my Collins Fungi Guide points in the direction of a group known as the Scalycaps, and the best match seemed to be Golden Scalycap.

Just one of those days.