The truisms of working a patch
I spent the morning (and early afternoon) at Canons Farm. It certainly had its moments, none more so than a flyover drake Gadwall, a new species for the site (there is no water by the way...). This event neatly illustrates one of the patch watcher's truisms - you CAN make a silk purse from a sow's ear. A Gadwall elsewhere would hardly get the pulse quickening, but this mornings drake had the three observers present in a slight state of joyful agitation. As would have done a Moorhen, Coot, Teal... you get the picture. We are knee-deep in Nuthatches here, they don't merit much thought, but if the same species turned up at Dungeness, then a full-scale twitch would be the outcome. In which case Canons Farms sow's-ear would become a Dungeness silk purse! I also partook in another patch watcher 'given' - the scan of hope , brought about when corvids and (or gulls) frantically leap into the air with much excited calling. Now is the time to stare long and hard into th