Birds and footy

For any normal 30 something bloke,this blog title would be a day out or weekend away watching football and a night on the town at the away town of your choice,pulling the local bit of spare.
Not me,Birds mean birds,fluffy little things or fluffy big things etc etc
Its been a while since i posted,a couple of weeks and in all honesty i havent done too much birding,plenty of work,watched a few games of football but only really been out birding twice,once this morning where i led a local bird walk on the Thames chase site that i am warden of the wildife group and Yesterday to EWT Thurrock Thameside,despite this,my list stands at 92 for the year,which is 5 days old.
As for the new year,it ended with Hornchurch 8th in the Conference South,a very respectable position,despite us having the 5th lowest crowds and not much cash,sadly 5 days later we are now 14th after leaking 9 goals in 2 games,not really good enough,but we did beat Billericay 1-0 at home in the A127 Classico on the 29th December.They haven't taken defeat well,we are cheats,nasty people who shouldnt be trusted if you read their forum,but we won the game so i dont really care too much.
As for Arsenal,they finished the year on a high,beating Newcastle 7-3 but started the New Year with a draw at Southampton,so nothing much changes there.
As for Birding,at 12.03am while outside Alices parents a Tawny Owl flew over,obviously spooked by the multitude of fireworks that people seem to have to set off at midnight,despite being far too paraletic to actually use them safely,two hours later,Owl number 2 was seen in Launders Lane,a Barn Owl,this is how i started my list off.The next day was spent at football where i added Ring Necked Parakeet to my list,which i had while standing in the away end at welling united,we lost 4-0.
A couple of days late i took Isla and Alice to rainham Marsh,as soon as we got there it started raining so we didn't actually leave the centre but i still added 30 or so birds to my year list,mainly ducks,waders and geese with a few of the obvious feeders.Isla claimed a Giraffe in the fields on the way there,think she had obviously been drinking too much over the new year.
Yesterday (friday) i visited Thurrock where i managed a Short eared owl,got 1 half decent photo of it,could of been so much better had i put the iso up on the camera but i didn't and managed a just about decent shot of it on a fence post.Had a very obliging Great Spotted Woodpecker on the post next to the hide and a few waders,ducks way out in the estuary.
Today i led a walk at Thames chase where although very damp and gloomy we did at least see a few birds,Little Egret was the first for the group,although i had a Barn Owl at 6.15 when i arrived,sitting on a post near the centre.2 male Bullfinch,c30 Siskin,a few Lesser redpolls were prominant in the woodland and on the scrape was a Green Sandpiper.Not too much else but a decent turn out of around 14 people was 10 up on the last walk i did.
Not sure where i am going tomorrow,may try for the Owl again after i have been Heathrow in the morning.