Today's weather is abysmal! But it is expected to clear by the afternoon. A walk in to the garden revealed an absence of the usual birds, it was eerily quiet with a noticeable lack of our Collared Doves. I mentioned this to my wife who then casually replied that there was a big brown bird sat there about an hour ago. "Could it have been a Sparrowhawk' was my reply.  "Yes" was her answer.  "That's what I thought it was". "Why didn't you call me"? I said,  "I was waiting for it to turn around" she replied……. ugh?  So we probably have had a female Sparrowhawk in the garden today. A notable new "fly-over" was a Cormorant, and this is a certainty. This is the  first in 24 years, we are not far from the sea or river so it is no surprise that eventually one would be seen from the garden sooner or later. I wont say that this Collared Dove was actually singing in the rain but it wasn't particularly worried about the raindrops pelting down either. 

Later in the day, and by early afternoon, the weather had cleared up quite considerably and I went out to the marsh to look for the Grey Phalarope seen at Turf. Unfortunately no sign but in the strong sun and even stronger wind there was lots to see. This included Redwing, Fieldfare and lots of waterfowl.
There is always a Cormorant to be found fishing in the canal when it is quiet and as I mentioned them this morning I took a few photos. Here is the best. You can see from this just how windy it was, even the canal had "white horses" on it. I got this  photo by laying down on the tow-path. The low perspective of the shot makes it a bit more interesting than the normal water bird shot. It is quite hard to take shots of birds on the water successfully.  The brightness reflected from the water can cause all sorts of difficulties. I have to say that I am fond of this image. There is a lot to catch the eye and particularly the water movement is very interesting.

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I posted a Nuthatch picture the other day and I had also posted to Birdguides, a great sight for birdlovers and lovers of bird photographs. They have a weekly contest and I always hope that one of my pictures will be in the reckoning, it has happened (a Sand Martin in the spring) but not recently. I was really hoping that my Nuthatch would make it last week but, no it didn't. However it is the most popular Nuthatch photo ever posted on Birdguides from the 650 or so. This is very rewarding indeed.