A shame as it was going very well, with the bird pretty keen on my high-pitched pishing, but there you go. One day I will go live somewhere in complete solitude, it will just be me and the birds. And all the joggers, lunatics, incontinent dogs, aggressive dog owners, model plane fliers, the Wednesday evening crowd and everyone else, including now drugged-up arboreal hipsters, who delight in spoiling my all-too-brief periods of relaxation will be nowhere to be seen. And finally I will get five minutes of peace. Fair enough, it's London and London's busy, but even so I reckon I'm massively unlucky.
That said, there are also moments of immense good fortune. For several weeks now I've been trying to find Woodcock on the patch. Wintering birds are now back, and having missed them several times earlier on in the year, it's a much-needed patch year tick and also the bird that will see me finally overtake Gaucho Bob for 2015. I had planned to stake out the Golf Course this evening, but as I was watching the Firecrest a bird flew directly past me, barreling through Long Wood, jinking spectacularly through the branches and off to the east. Exhilarated doesn't come close to how I felt - how jammy am I?! Or should that be jammin'?
