Fairytale of New Medway !

Last weekend I was just about recovering from a bad week of flu like illness and decided to bird the North Kent marshes 'for a change' pre Xmas just to get a bit of fresh air. Now I'm certainly not a festive person, the meaning of Xmas is either going to work and getting paid extra or going birding with a bit of socialising thrown in. Long gone are the days of the build up to Xmas MFI or no MFI, no Woolies, Whittards on the brink of coffee meltdown, it's a pretty depressing time of year that warrants getting out in the field with your bins and seeing a few festive birds.

WAXWING That'll do as one conveniently was found by Frank at lower Halstow and off I shot past the Medway shoppers looking for a bargain to the bottle bank of Medway, Lower Halstow, Sure enough there it was still on it's favoured tree and performed well for the next 30 mins or so.

Next stop Sharps Green a good locality for photos of Gulls and as luck would have it a Med Gull seen strutting it's stuff and attempting to charm the feathers off a Common Gull. That would be an interesting hybrid, must get a feather sample and send it for DNA analysis and time wasting.

All was going well, fine weather, no disturbance, birds showing well then suddenly all the Gulls flew and the viewfinder in my camera went dark/yellow.

Fred bleeding Skuttle of the camouflaged photographers club had entered the arena and all the birds flew off while megaphone bird scarer and camo man wandered up to a boat to photograph it oblivious of the disturbance he'd caused. Hopefully his camera didn't work.

I drove off disgruntled and partly blinded by his attire.......certainly no parking attendants needed here.

And there ends the pre Xmas moan.

Oh well nearly Saturday It'll all be over!!!!