SURELY NEXT WEEK?

After yesterday's fairly bleak weather, I arrived full of optimism for a few migrants to arrive.  The morning began well with a year tick for both Marc and myself in the form of a noisy BRAMBLING immediately we left our cars.  The walk to Cold Harbour was fairly uneventful although the sun was determined to break through.  We recorded all the usual suspects with good numbers of Redshank (30) and Dunlin (18) .  9 Linnets were showy on the seawall and the same number of Jackdaw flew high overhead.  As we reached Cold Harbour our chums the 3 SHORELARKS posed nicely for Marc to take their photographs again and the HOODED CROW was again sighted on the Mussel beds.  On our return walk we met Matt and Chris Hindle who had also drawn a blank.  Chris smiled sagely and reminded us we needed to wait another week for an invasion of Wheatears and Black Redstarts.  The last remnants of the huge Brent Geese flock whizzed up and down and a lone Peregrine decided to play 'Chase the Redshank' - unsuccessfully, by the Oyster Farm.  We had 20 minutes sea watch in which Heathy picked up three distant Gannets and I saw 10 buoys and a nice yellow boat.  We decided on a quick look around the caravan bushes and we soon found 3 Goldcrests.  Heathy now has a weekend set of 'Crest' photos and if you haven't seen his Firecrest photographs, have a look on his blog, they are Ashton quality,as you can see from one above.  Hopefully a few migrants next week, although other birders did find a Red Kite and Sand Martin today.