Patch neglect

It is with a heavy heart that I admit I have somewhat neglected - forgotten even, to visit my patch of late.  It has been a good five weeks since I last set foot in park, and to the extent of my knowledge it has stood un-birded for all that time. Now I'm not that much of a patch birder, I don't do patch year-lists or even a patch-list -although I think I should- however I still feel ashamed for having left it for all this time.  To make it worse I visited Wanstead Flats three times over the course of three days last week.  It was worth it though....

Despite the rain.

Bright sunlight.

And amazingly tame Kestrels.

Although I have no problem whatsoever with Kestrels being tame.  Frankly the opposite as I'm sure the case would be with any wildlife photographer.  This individual bird allowed me to slowly make my way around the tree to a better shooting angle and hardly paid any notice to me. The Whinchat was also quite calm with me approaching, but the lighting was abominable so the distant shot was the best.  However I'm not complaining, no sir.  For that wee bird took my year-list to a nice round number of 160.  Definitely worth the rain.