June 1st 2008

A crap day. Woke to find the knee injury I picked up in Armenia had returned and I could hardly put any weight on it so it was a case of "hop along cassidy" when Dave picked me this morning. We did the valley and started well with a Cuckoo near Grandborough Fields Farm and 160+ plus Lesser Black-back Gulls between Sawbridge and Willoughby then it was on to Draycote Reservoir where my description of "its only early morning mist and will soon burn off" got us absolutely soaked as I limped to farborough spit. Only 2 Common Tern for our efforts. Dried out while doing a quick check on Napton Reservoir which had Whitethroat 4 and two broods of Long-tailed Tits then it started to rain again so we sheltered in The Diner, Long Itchington before moving on to Brandon Marsh.
Brandon was quiet with the best being Oystercatcher pair with young, Shelduck 2 and plenty of Reed Warblers but by now I had enough so we called it quits and went home.

Richard