Just to share the joy of a drake Smew on patch at Alton- the last one a few years ago had felt like a last chance to see already. Not the full set of white head plumes on this chap, but pearls of water on its back when it upped from dive. #BirdArt

Great joy to have R N Grebe in the mighty Stour area this afternoon (ta @esbr-essex.bsky.social ) - here's a pencilling of its resting head shape. #BirdArt

Still tiddling about with GND images from earlier in the week- a happy thing is that they have black stripes down the quills of their axillaries (armpit feath'rs) like the splayed slats of an Adirondack chair #BirdArt

Lovely Barn Owl asleep in the sun this morning with tail fanned and primaries resting on the deck #BirdArt

A wild Sunday PM ride through BOU 58. Adrenalin levels still subsiding after changing Eurasian Hoopoe to Common Hoopoe in the mighty Stour area collective list. Now for the grand re-ordering- looks like Ruddy Duck grabs top spot on all our lists, even if re-badged as Cat C6.

Not a field sketch that's for sure, but just pencilling out a top nice thing from the Stour today- wind lifting the nape of a Black-throated Diver enough to make a white crescent from the underlay. #BirdArt

Not sure if vid. works on repeat, but anyway this should be one of the juv GNDs on the Stour this week losing its rag with a fish way too big to swallow and hammering it with its beak. #BirdArt

Here's a backlit GND from the Stour earlier in the week. Beak open between dives. #BirdArt

Flat calm first thing- GC Grebe looking like its been tie-pinned on a swatch of Paul Smith fabric

wet out there

It has taken a bit of legwork to get this GW Egret at Alton Water decoded (well done to Laurence Potter for tip-off that we had a bangled one there). Turns out it is from NE Poland, border with Lithuania. I've seen a couple of reports from Belarus, so fits the pattern. #UKBirding

Top detour thanks to Great Bustard Group on way back from some non-birdy doings down south- these two big boyz on Salisbury Plain standing tall in sluicing rain I guess so water doesn't puddle on their mighty backs #BirdArt

Too much time on wadery data entry at the mo, but just time to add a Turnstone bodyrocking a floating goose carcase to the ouevre.

Important to keep the rainbow list moving along. Greenshank, Barwit and Grey Plover added in one hit along the Stour this evening. Brent, Redshank and Knot just rainbow year ticks.

We've got a pearly king of Grey Plover on the Stour this week- big round white tips to all its uppers and no sign of wear that I have seen yet, so pretty sure it is a bit of moulto madness. #Birdart

You might think the most exciting yellow rectangle of the autumn would be the glowing arseplaster of a Pallas's Warbler- but no- it has to be the flag on Knot VXY arriving a week early on the Stour for at least its twelfth consecutive season #UKbirding

Featuring a Desertas petrel that stunned scientists by chasing a tropical storm (see their incredible chase mapped here!), tiny nightingales that cross the Sahara twice a year, and Bewick's swans that have changed their stopovers and diet

Making the most of mild adversity- I’m grounded with a dinged back, but discover my walking stick doubles nice as a brush rest.#Birdart

Little rascals still busy this week- here one trying to swipe a mouse off the Kestrel, which foiled it by flipping onto the roof slope and holding the mouse out of sight. #BirdArt

Rainy day paint project- here's three bandits doing a backlit autumnal thing earlier in the week. #Birdart

Today the Hobby kits have been learning about crows- no protection on hand from the adults as the female is long departed and the male doesn't do child minding except for feeding... happy ending as the grabbed bird got rescued in fine style by its siblings. #UKbirding

GBBG looking pleasingly like a Lammergeier whilst chugging a flattie yesterday afternoon.

Some weather at last! Curlew Sand being biffed by the wind on the roost today before nipping round the corner to get in the leeside of things. #UKbirding

First few juv Knot coming through here- must be bloody irritating to make it 4,000Km from Ellesmere Island or wherever and then have a Manila clam (I guess) clamp onto your hind toe when you land. #UKbirding

Plovers scuttling about on the baked crust of the salting this evening- here's lumpen juv Ringed Plover versus elfin juv Little Ringed Plover #UKbirding

Air defence systems still active this week. #BirdArt

Just to confirm that the young GBBG is now the size of small donkey.

Been doing a bit of long overdue taxonomy catch-up. I've got my head around divers no longer being at the front of the bird book, but cuckoos between bustards and sandgrouse is going to take a bit of getting used to. #UKbirding

Some weather at last! Not enough rain to lay the dust, but four inbound Knot plopped in and hauled out behind the Co-op. #UKBirding

There's consequences to having GBBG on the river- but hats off to this Shelduck who has successfully defended seven chicks for a week without loss despite daily check ups from the beast. #BirdArt

A bit of late season chickery down on the roost- Redshanks hatched in last week, so after the first godwits are back. The gatepost has been there since at least 1900 so has hosted more than 125 years of yelping Redshanks. #UKbirding

Shame you can't paint sounds- had a Peregrine follow me across a field and who00osh straight over my shoulder trying to take a Skylark. #BirdArt

Tempting to think that all gulls are rampant everywhere, but GBBG is still staying classy- as far as i can tell there's none pairs in Essex, just a couple in Suffolk inc. this one which escorted me off the premises whilst I was trying to count the early season Curlew. #UKbirding

That’s very cool

Its that tricky week when there don't seem to be any waders going north or south, so attention wanders to other things. Here's a grebeling at Ardleigh with a heart-shaped red spot on its forehead.

I thought y’all would be excited to get an update. Fledgie 1 lasted <24 hours and was nobbled by a Tawny Owl before it could even get itself into the Buzzard zone. Fledgie 2 is a lot nimbler so fleeting photos, but it does have a white eyebrow like a Siberian Thrush.

A bit quiet round here on the birding front but the Jackdaws have just fledged a white un out of the back of my shed

Always liberating to chuck a not-working-out paint off the easel and start something else. Meant to be Pied Wags skidding round some evening backlit gulls on ice in Feb, but the ice doesn't look like ice and the gulls look more oiled than backlit so👎 and on we go...#birdart

Good week for dark spots against blue water - on the left Knot cruising in to the roost in west Iceland then on return to the mighty Stour, 510 Dark-bellied Brent are still here on the weed.

Lovely thing down in the marsh tonight- spectrum of colours flashing in a spider's web as the spider scampered about the middle

Classic godwit departure tonight- birds super-excited, jumping and flapping to get flight muscles warmed up, then take off + up and away high north-west inland, maybe non-stop to Iceland #UKbirding

About another week to go for the godwits. We are at the moultpoint where the Spotred is so black it doesn't make any difference if you are photo'ing it against the light. #UKbirding

While I’m on- I’ve been off the paints and enjoying other peoples’ words lately- here’s WB Nichols writing on Hooded Crows here on the Stour estuary 1917 and you can’t help thinking what lovely social media posts the old stuff would have made hundred years on.

I wonder if the word baleful is used in any other context these days other than to describe the facial expression of Stone Curlew. Anyway, here's two fun lovin' SC gambolling about the sandstrip like gleeful newborn lambs. #UKbirding

Back on the river after a day off- the Black Swans snorkelling menacingly round the godwits like orcas round penguins on a floe.

Not much room for waders these days- a gorgeous flock of 425 spring Golden Plovers squeezed inbetween a back road and the A12 just now. #ukbirding

Oh dear- dinged my back so I'm off driving and birding for a coupla days, but can still stand at an easel. I went for this one because I liked the way the Oyk throws a shadow over the taily end of the godwit. #BirdArt

Always the possibility that a blue-ringed Shelduck is as deadly as a Blue-ringed Octopus so best watched safely from distance through a scope.

Don't often get to add something to the birds seen with rainbow list today- here's Egyptian Geese glowing after that rain. #UKBirding

Seasons are on the turn- about half the Knot flock has pushed off to Waddensee and the rest will be gone soon and first of the regular spring godwits is back- this one WfR aka "Woofer" ringed in Spain more than a decade ago and is sometimes back here as early as end of December. #UKbirding