Olive-backed Pipit & Red-flanked Bluetail.

Ready to head off to Wells wood at 4.30 am when we get the added bonus that Brian will be able to join us. It's a good 2 hour trip from home in Essex not helped by some fairly thick mist on the way.
Parked up in Wells car park just after 7am we head off down the track with a large amount of other birders already here looking & listening for anything to give us  a tick or we hope a lifer or two.
A fellow tells us he has just had a Blyth's warbler round by the old toilet block, so off to look for it.
After a good time spent both looking & listening it's a no show so we head of to the drinking pond & bingo the first lifer of the day when the Bluetail shows to give  good views, never really chased a Bluetail but really pleased to have got  one now.
I had the camera out but I couldn't focus on the bird as it moves about in the undergrowth with not much light on it, really frustrating for me but not surprising.
The boys had set off down the track so time to catch up with them. A large group had gathered when I reached them & I soon pick up another lifer when a Yellow-browed Warbler shows & also calls as it flies about in the trees.
At the same place a Hume's leaf Warbler flies over our heads  but lands out of sight but it also calls from the back of the bushes.
On the way back to the car I volunteer to get back to the car as the parking ticket had run out leaving the boys to pick up the Blyth's before they leave, I have only ever seen one before so a bit gutted about that. But on the way I had picked up a Brambling that I had flushed up from the grass.
Off to Muckleburgh Hill now in the hope of picking up the Oliver-backed Pipit.
It's not to far away from us & we are soon joining a small group on the hill.
After a short time it's another lifer when the bird shows well from under a tree,it walks about in the ferns to give us good views but once again I get no really good photos of it.
The pager tells us that a Long-eared Owl had just been seen a short way away at Beeston Common.
We have to go to look for it, we were here last week for the Isabelline Shrike & Brian & Jimmy go for another look for it leaving me to look for the Owl.
As they head back having got some more photos of the Shrike I had found the Owl sitting in some bushes, I seem to be the only one that could see it & I think people were starting to doubt me when the Owl flies out of the bush & heads up to a big tree but is mobbed by some crows & Magpies & thinks better of it & flies out & off over the road, some people try to find it again but we head back to the car well satisfied with another great day's birding & also meeting up with a lot of birder's that we know.
                                                                         

Brian's photo of Oliver-backed Pipit

Brambling

Brambling

Brian's Pipit again