A Cold Crisp White Afternoon Birding

My original plan of going out birding at the break of dawn was scuppered somewhat by England managing to cock up their innings against the Aussies overnight,I thought i would wake up to see us 250-6 or something,not 180 odd all out,so i decided to watch us bowl to see if we could get a few wickets before close,we got 3 for the loss of around 100 which leaves the aussies as slight favourites but there is still a long way to go.I left isla with Granny at 10am and went home to get changed to go off birding,by the time i had got changed it was pelting down with snow,even though the forecast i was led to believe was for unbroken sunshine,twats.I decided to leave it a while and settled down to a bit of Michael Palin full circle,actually felt sorry for him travelling 55'000 miles around the pacific on bbc money only to not be able to reach his starting point again by 2 miles,shit happens i suppose.After that,and the snow stopping i was in the mood for a bit of birding so decided to go Berwick Ponds again to look for the Bittern

Got there at around 1.30pm and decided to walk the whole way round the lake,not too much around to start with,2 Great spotted woodpeckers,1 green woodpecker and a blue tit where all i really saw till i got round the other side to set my scope up.As soon as the scope was up i got onto 47 linnets across the pond,then 3 siskin flew to the tree next to them,a heron landed 20ft from me and it started to get interesting.From nowhere a Male Marsh Harrier shot out the reedbed and over towards berwick pond road and then a water rail was in the reeds 5ft from me.Happy with this i decided to call it a day and to go pick the nipper up,not unhappy with the afternoon but a little dissapointed not to get the Bittern,just getting up to the car and something grabbed my attention out the corner of my eye,A Bittern,about 40ft up in the air travelling towards the Ingrebourne,a sight i had not seen before,only ever seen them low flying in and out the reeds,made me wonder why i bothered walking around the lake,the Marsh Harrier reminded me why!!!
Not a bad Afternoon indeed,plus my mate Rumbo is back from Ibiza some point today which usually spells me getting into trouble with her indoors :)