Sunday 21st January 2018

The end of the third week of January, and of the year. And already it seems ages since Christmas and New Year, the time off spent together at home, especially as the weekend whizzes by in a flash, but it seems we are using our free time well, and with the going out, snapping, walking, exercise and so on, not wasting time. But as ever, the realisation that on Sunday morning, half the weekend has gone and Monday is looming adds a melancholy air to what we do.

With yet more heavy rain forecast, we had to be out an about bright and early, but with another late night card sharping, I was inclined to give snapping a miss, only for Jools to ask what the plan was. She got up made a coffee, meaning we were out of the door by half eight, calling in at the garage to fill up and grab something for breakfast to eat as we drive up the A2 to Canterbury, before taking the A28 out back into the countryside past a couple of familiar orchid spots to arrive at Godmersham.

This winter has been Britain and the near continent invaded by a rare bird, Hawfinch, and a colony of them had made their home in the churchyard at Godmersham, so why not try to see the little buggers as they had been there best part of a week? All I knew was that they have a larger beak than other finches, the rest I was hoping for luck.

There were two twitchers there already, or what turned out to be newbies like me, but they had seen one that morning, but with many other species flying round, trying to pick out the Hawfinch from the others was going to be difficult.

Especially when not just the Hawfinches liked to make a snack from the many yew trees, but Chaffinches, Goldfinches, various Tits and even Goldcrests did too. And as ever I reminded that snapping birds needs serious glass, I have a 400mm zoom, but really one double that is needed to make the birds appear large in the view finder. But hope springs eternal, and in the cool crisp morning, you never know. As it happened I did get a few distant shots, not good enough to publish, other than to say we were there and saw one. Mainly I snapped other birds; Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Goldcrest and various rooks and crows.

My friend, Mark, turned up with his wife and daughter to join in the hunt, and we had a good catch up, and I showed them round the church and the memorial to Jane Austen's brother which attracts visitors from all over the world.

A light drizzle had begun to fall, so I thought it might be the right time to go to Bossingham to try to see the Nuthatch. I guess it was a 20 minute drive and I hoped the drizzle was a passing thing, but it became clear it was set in for the day. At Canterbury we decided to skip the Nuthatch and go home instead. Rain was falling steadily, making driving less fun, so I think we made the right choice.

Back home the rain was harder, and fell the rest of the day, so no work in the garden either, just listen to the radio, do some writing, edit photographs, and generally, the day fades. Even the afternoon Prem game is missed, as, well, seems you can have too much football; who knew?