Weathered

Tomorrow I'm booked on a Naturetrek day trip out on the Norfolk coast, which unlike the last one I did in the Forest of Dean isn't really achievable within the day, so I've decided to make an early weekend of it, and this morning I headed off over there. The weather was still pretty horrible, though it's forecast to improve by tomorrow, so I'm cautiously hopeful that I might not get as wet and cold as I did on the previous trip.

Driving conditions were pretty tiring - the A14 being a particular Circle of Hell - and so as not to lose concentration I took a mid-point break at Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire, where there's a café, and where the area around the south-western section of the reservoir is run as a nature reserve by the local Wildlife Trust. I only had time to walk half way across the reserve and visit a couple of the hides, but I'd say that there's probably quite good birding potential there, on a day when everything isn't hunkered down, trying desperately to stay out of the driving wind and periodic bursts of horizontal rain.

Bird of the day (from not very many, to be fair) was this windswept Teal, which looked about as happy with the conditions as I was. Teal are charming little ducks, busy and chatty under happier circumstances, and inclined to getting little fits of the zoomies, but today was not a day for playing. It was very much a day for gritting the teeth bill, narrowing the eyes, and enduring.

R: C5, D14.