Pintail

Dinner in the oven by 9:00 this morning - beef and ale whatever, which smells great but the lad won't be quite so happy with the situation when he realises I have filched his last can of 'Old Speckled Hen' to put in it! I won't tell, if you don't tell! Caught up on a staggering amount of office work but decided to head off for a blip this afternoon - guiltily, very guiltily.... slinking out under cover of rain.

This pintail is the most elegant of British ducks with a tail that can grow to about eight inches long. Their breeding tends to be sporadic and the rarely keep to the same site for more than a few years. There were huge numbers at Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust this afternoon and I preferred this to the greylag picture which I mistakenly thought was a pink footed goose, in the end! So sorry to those people who commented on it!

I had forgotten the Bewick's were holed up in holland and an RSPB member had confided that with the change in weather direction they would be arriving - oh and they sure did. As I had arrived very late they did too!