Bloody Partridges

My early morning patch listing over the Ingrebourne Valley took a hit this morning as i had to get up at 3am to drive to Heathrow to pick some customers up,coming in from Lagos,Nigeria,wish i hadn't bothered.My previous experiences of Nigerians are bad,ok there is only one when i worked for a Nigerian company,but it left a sour taste in my mouth with them owing me £2'000,money i have never received and wrote off some years ago.Todays experience was no better,rude and arrogant is the polite words i shall use.After dropping them off,while trying to make small talk with them,letting them use my blackberry phone charger and giving them a good service,they got out the car into their Emerson Park mansion without a thanks or a goodbye,then an hour later the father calls me and says "you got my bag in your car" to which i replied "there's nothing in there but i will have another look anyway for you", "phone me back" he says and the phone goes dead.I go to the car,nothing in there apart from a mouldy banana and tolberone stuck to my seats.I ring him back and say "sorry sir,there is no bag in the vehicle" to which he replies "i have the bag"and puts the phone down,again no thank you etc.Tosser,i have just posted the banana and tolblerone wrappers through the arrogant tossers letterbox,glad he wasn't actually one of my customers as i was given the job by someone else.
I got home about 8am and slept till midday,then decided to extend ones year list further.Still being tired i decided to bird by car for most of the afternoon,visiting farland in the area in hope of partridge,thrushes,raptors etc.First stop was a country lane near me(no Partridges) where i have seen Peregrine before on a pylon and i was rewarded with a first class view of one on a pylon.A good start to say the least and this was followed by a lovely Song thrush in the same lane,i then headed to the thames chase forest visitor centre for a cup of tea and upon parking i had a Sparrowhawk and then a lovely Meadow Pipit on the grass in front of the centre.From here i decided to visit Fen lane(no partridges),this area is farmland with plenty of ditches,hence the name "fen" but there was nothing but c50 fieldfare around.I then headed towards Orsett to a notorious Partridge hotspot,took about 20 minutes but i got my bird,also 20 siskins and a few linnets were passing through.
I then decided on a change of scenary,so headed towards London on the A13 and to Rainham Marshes,i decided to go to Coldharbour lane first where almost immediatly i locked onto the Short Eared Owl,watched it over the sluice for a few minutes before heading up the road to the car park overlooking Aveley bay,i watched for a few minutes where i had 3 Curlew,a number of shelduck,cormorants and teal with the odd Redshank for good measure.Overlooking the reserve there were plenty of gulls but too far for me to check for any unusual ones,not that i would be able to Id anything out the ordinary lol.
From there i went to the Visitor Centre for another cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake,job done!!!
In the centre a quick scan out the front produced a snipe,which was hard to pick up in poor light but i got it as it was moving otherwise an impossible task.On leaving i had two Ring necked parakeets going back over the Thames to their roost in Bexley.By now it was 3.50pm so i headed towards home via the lanes in the hope of an owl but no such luck although i did encounter a muntjac near berwick ponds.
Since i got home i have been playing with the nipper whose vocabulary seems to be growing every day,instead of calling me daddy,she now calls me Robert or Bob,not sure i am comfortable with either,think i should be given the respect i deserve and she should be calling me dad,daddy or dada.Quite a handful at 21 months she is already,anyway 3 days left till the Boozy Birders weekend away up at Norfolk,starting at Cantley at 8am Saturday,good times and good birds hopefully,especially when our devoted leader Sir Howard Vaughan has his eyes and ears to the ground and skies........Come on H,give us some specials.