Tis a good good week!!!

Spring or Autumn, then Portland is the place to be.
Christmas is a very different story.. you need to be here.. Newbury / Hungerford.

We had a Glossy Ibis deciding to become 'tame' and pose for pictures..
Then http://www.berksbirds.co.uk/ mentions a Great White Egret in Great Shefford.. and then... then a bloody Dipper in Welford!!!
This is West Berkshire... not the West Country!!
If this week carries on - it will be a Dodo or Phoenix next??

So I turned up at Welford, expecting a blank, cos that is usually how it goes..
Got chatting to a guy with a camera lens as long my arm.. he was aiming it at a house by the River Lambourn.. wondered if I should chat to him.. He could be a 'pap'?..
But he is on the Dipper.. it isnt on the river and has popped over a fence and is in someones garden!
I look, I dont see.. this is my motto for the year?? Then someone opens a window in the house and it pops up on a fence.. If you didnt know better, you'd say 'Blackbird!

That was a 10 minute look. Apart from when Im with Tim or Joe, I never see the target so quickly.. so with the shots taken and light fading, I headed to Great Shefford and the GW Egret..

No Birders, Twitchers or even cars in the site it was reported at.. Not good..

Now a life lesson.. when its cold.. take gloves!!!

Stood on the roadside, scanning a field that is white with snow, looking for a bird that is white as snow.. I was beginning to guess that result..

Then.. hey presto.. or hey dodo... or whaever the saying is..

I finally spot what I'm looking for.. Stood way off in the distance, I walked along the road to try and take a picture of a white bird against a background that wasnt white as snow..

Whilst in Great Shefford, I was lucky enough to meet a Birdwatcher.. one of those people who can actually identify what they see.. This chap told me that there was a Jack Snipe on the bend of the river.. a quick look through the 'bins' and yep.. a Yeartick and no. 144....

Target was 100 at the start.. 2 new ones in a week and the boy went away happy.

On a roll, and needing beer, I decided to go through Hungerford and look for Waxwing..

Got very excited in what turned out to be a Redwing.. oh well..