Consolation Prizes

After being humiliated by 6 non-showing Hawfinches at Bookham Common last weekend, the appearance of a Black-necked Grebe in the unusual location of Richmond Park was surely going to be a routine tick and run operation. My alarm is very under-used at the moment, and despite setting it for un-timely hours to check the moth trap before the Robins do, it always seems to have mysteriously turned itself off by the morning. Luckily, it didn't let me down this morning, and I was up and scanning Pen Ponds by 9am.

In the half-asleep state that I was in, it could easily have been perching on the end of my lens and I still wouldn't have noticed it, but with no sign by half 10, I turned my attention to the more 'showy' locals.

All thoughs of Grebelessness were lost when a stunning male Wheatear popped up in the bracken near Lower Pen Ponds, fresh from its winter vacation in Africa, and one of only a dozen or so in London at present. It was extremely skittish, opting for high vantage points in the dead ferns, but crouching under a fallen branch allowed for my closest approach yet with the new lens, and a 1.4x teleconverter slapped on the end...

Reed Bunting and Meadow Pipits were much more confiding than they ever have been in Bushy Park, and weren't scared to hop down and take seed from the main paths once the coast was clear.

Just checking the 'best by' date of a nearby slice of bread...

Meadow Pipit...