A decent day's birding locally at last.

Having had a pretty bad run with the camera at all my local patches lately when the weatherman said that Friday "would be the last day of the sunny warm weather" I was not confident of a good day with the camera as I set off early for Draycote Water.

It was a bad start because it was not sunny and not warm.A visit to Toft produced nothing of interest at all and even the walk to the outlet where you usually can count on some Grey Wagtails on the way to show themselves was very poor.

After a picnic at the outlet I met up with Bob and Francoise and things perked up a lot when on the way back to the centre we found the Lesser Scaup just off the Hensborough bank.I was pleased to see it again as I had not seen it for some time.It must have been out all night at a disco because it was asleep most of the time and you had to be lucky to get a shot with it's head up.

As we approached the sailing club we noticed some birds on the roof and soon spotted some Meadow Pipits and a couple of Pied Wagtails but then suddenly another bird suddenly appeared.It had a red tail!!!!! A Black Redstart!!!!! I'm claiming I found it but Bob was the first to shout out and I was the one who text Birdguides.I haven't done that often.

It was much paler than the two I'd seen before and it was having a bad hair day but just like the one at Coleshill last year it was happy to pose for shots.