One I didn't miss

On the odd occasion, I do actually achieve a bird that I had bothered to jump out of bed to see and today was such an occasion.  My working week turned out to be non eventful, pretty much as usual and main thing that kept me going was the weekend and the possibility of trying for the White Rumped Sandpiper again at Rutland or just going for a nice stroll at Brandon Marsh.  However, with autumn kicking in for good (finally) and Christmas looming on the horizon, there were added pressures of clearing leaves and buying Christmas presents.  So, this morning after supplying my birder's wife with her weekend cup of tea in bed, I reacquainted myself with my old friend, Mr Rake and set to the front garden.  After putting away Mr Rake, hopefully for another year, I went inside and found my birder's wife had returned from her travels in the land of Nod and urshered her to my car with her binoculars round her neck so that we could travel up the M69 and M1 to try for a bird I have always wanted to see and never really got round to (before now).  This is probably the nearest I would normally find myself to a twitch (to me, a twitch is to venture out with only the desire to see the target bird) and this trip did not disappoint.  After an hour's journey, we pulled into the car park just before the entrance to Attenborough NR, squeezed into a parking space and walked the short distance to the nearby Sailing Club.  Out target bird was a juvenile Squacco Heron who was not being that obliging and was obviously becoming camera shy to the 30+ other birders who were also there.  Even I managed to obtain a record shot and after watching it do nothing much for 20 minutes, we proceeded back home via Fosse Park in Leicester for some Christmas shopping.  Not a bad haul then for the day, I not only managed to clear the leaves but also managed to see a fantastic bird and keep my birder's wife happy by going shopping.