Poor effort...

Above - Lapland Bunting. No its not a mystery bird photo. If you squint and use your imagination...

A drizzly, misty, cold breezy day. Not a lot going for it.

I took a trip down to Cresswell Pond to meet up with NF and ADMc this morning and to have a look for the male Lapland Bunting that has taken up residence in the Shorelark field.

Arriving from the north at Cresswell was an ordeal in itself. I've seen the water levels high enough to flood the road many times in the past, but not like this. As I attempted to drive through, the car made a funny gurgling sound that gave me flashbacks of the time me and JWR were nearly washed off Holy Island causeway in a Mini Metro...but thats another story. Back to the present, I made it across without even getting my wellies wet! We had a laugh though when a jogger tried to negotiate the waves and, midway across, a fuel tanker ploughed through, the resulting wake almost washed him up the dunes.

With there being very little on the pond, a Peregrine fly by was the best here so off we went to the links to look for the Lap ( we drove the long way via Ellington!).

The birds in the field were found easily from the road but remained flighty and often elusive. The Lapland Bunting was first seen bathing in a muddy puddle with 30+ Twite before being flushed by a speeding car on the road. As I was setting up the camera, NF managed to get the Lap and the Shorelark in the same view, though both flew off before I got this priveledge.

I rattled off a single shot before the bunting took flight, the results leave a lot to be desired. You'd think I had dropped the camera and it had gone off...remember those images of the Loch Ness monster?