Wryneck at Wanstead

Jimmy phoned me on sat at about 9 o'clock from Lea Valley, he had been there on his patch since 5 o'clock,he said he had just bumped into Neville who told him there was a Wryneck at Wanstead flats, and do I want to shoot over there with him.
I was going to spend the day indoors and go Birding on Sunday, but 20minutes later I am walking all over the flats looking for the right place to see the bird, we had picked Robert up on the way as we had to go past his house to get here and it was nice to have him with us,
After about 2 hours we find the local birder who reported the bird on birdguides I think he's name was Tony, the bird had been seen some 20 mins ago.
we stand looking at the Hawthorn bushes for some time but to no avail.
Brian had now joined us,he has been down to Oare Marsh with Sue to try out his new binoculars.
Jimmy had phoned him at the same time as he had me, we knew if he could get here he would.
We spend another 2 hours looking at the Hawthorn bush but we never got a sight of it so we call it a day.


Whitethroat

 The 20 minute drive home turns into a nightmare as the 406 & the M11 are  shut because of a big crash, nearly 2 hours later we get home, not to happy about that , but then you think of the poor people in the crash and realise your trouble is small compared to what they are going through.

After spending the evening down Brians house, we deciede to try again on Sunday.
We meet up at 6,30am and get to the flats before 7, Tony and another Birder are already there, they utter the words we dread , not seen it yet.

As we spend the next couple of hours looking at the said bush, it is starting to come alive with birds,  inside 20 minutes we see a beautiful male Redstart showing really well & often, also a Lesser Whitethroat, Robin , Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Dunnock, Greenfinch, male & female Blackcap.
Flying over we see Green Woodpecker, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, and Ring-Necked Parakeet.

We are having a really nice morning as we get to talk to some of the local birders on their patch, we do see most of them from time to time at different places, but it was nice.





Wryneck; If you squint hard enough

  No luck with the target bird, so we set off to go round the other side, we only go a very short way when the shout goes up Wryneck,
we run back and a fellow kindly tells us to get a view through his scope so we don't miss out.

The bird stays in view so we get our own scopes on to the bird and get a really nice look at it.

I take a photo of the bush and you can just about see the shape of the Wryneck , it is just a bit to far away for my small lens, but at least I know what it is, Johnathan is standing next to me and he has a massive lens on his camera and shows us the snap he has taken,he got lucky as the Redstart is also in his photo, which is ten times better than mine, still that's life ,maybe one day I might upgrade I wonder if my wife will let me sell the house to fund it.

I must say this was one of the best decisions we have made to come here today, and I will come back to stare at this Hawthrorn bush on another day.