A better day...

Despite it being Sunday I was awake again at just after 6am. As my husband is a late riser, this feels like the middle of the night!
But I'm quite happy to potter around and watch the birds in the garden until he gets up.
This morning I was treated to some goldfinches(not regulars), a beautiful (but greedy) Jay, and the usual host of blackbirds, pigeons(which I'm not fond of) and tits. It was quite a colourful early morning :)

Once the other half surfaced, we headed out to Moore Nature Reserve for only the second time. The last time we went, we were lucky enough to catch a few minutes of the kingfisher, and following yesterday's disappointment of no owls, we were looking for something similar to make up for it.
We'd heard that there was a bittern at the Eastern Reed bed, so went in search of the hide. They are apparently very shy birds, so there was no guarantee at all.
After a lovely walk, but not much action at the other hides along the way, we finally reached the Phoenix hide and saw the guy who pointed out the kingfisher last time. He is obviously a regular and a real twitcher, with his massive lens, camouflage clothing and flask of coffee and sandwiches!
As soon as we arrived we saw the kingfisher perched on a branch in the distance, and it's times like this when I think I should get a huge lens like that guy! My little zoom cannot get in close enough for properly focussed pictures - it was just too far away. But I snapped away whilst my hubby enjoyed the numerous fishing attempts of the beautiful kingfisher.  This blip is the best of a bad lot, but we thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle, despite the poor photos and the lack of the bittern.