Another trip to Draycote Water.

Having stayed at home on Friday doing some gardening mainly battling with the weeds that grow everywhere including the driveway and the patio (I'm damn sure that as soon as you weed one area they return as soon as your back is turned.) I needed to go out with the camera and I played it safe and went to Draycote Water.

Saw Pete Walkden in the car park as I arrived.Now I had previously decided to ignore him when we next met because I was so jealous of all the cracking shots he'd taken recently (the last one being a super shot of a Wryneck).

Of course I didn't and we walked to the Hensborough bank together which in itself was a bit of a mistake because Pete, even though he's carrying a huge lens and tripod, walks very quickly and by the time we'd climbed the steep incline up past the centre I was gasping for air.

On the wader front there were still 6 Ringed Plovers.

Also there were at least 4 Dunlin.

The Curlew Sandpipers had been reduced to a lone juvenile.

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The only other bird of interest I spotted was a distant Yellow-legged Gull which was the first I'd seen for a while.

Good to see many old friends but the best was a little later when I sat by the mobile cafe and had a coffee with local birding legends Steve Seal,Richard Mays and Pete Walkden.It was like sitting at the top table at a royal wedding.They were talking about birds I'd never heard of so I wisely just kept nodding my head.