A rainy Baddow Meads

Today I decided to brave the rain and head down to a very muddy Baddow meads. I did see some good birds including very good views of A male reed Bunting, very close views of skylark and a very close fly-by from a large Carrion Crow. It seems that the Glossy Ibis has moved on and was last reported up river. However the bird of the day was a Chiffchaff that had an unusual call/song. It may have been a Siberian chiffchaff, but I will never know for sure as I didn't get a good view. One thing I have noticed though is the lack of migrants about. This time last year I was seeing Whitethroat, Sedge warbler and Reed Warbler on this patch but this year I am still awaiting a sighting of any of these birds. I just hope that the reason isn't a terrible winter in Africa.
It was too wet for photography so sadly there are no photos of this outing.

Glossy Ibis self found

Glossy Ibis on Baddow Meads Essex

On the 24th March 2012 I found A stunning Winter plumage Glossy Ibis on my local patch, Baddow Meads, Essex. The Bird had previously been rung in Spain, seen in Wales and then seen in Maldon. I knew this because the bird had the ring number 8J9. On the day I found it I was annoyed that I couldn't go to Maldon to see the ibis and a Green-winged teal (Which I never saw) so I was very surprised to find the bird on my local patch instead. And another plus was it saved me from going on another 'twitch' and personally I don't really like twitching.
The Ibis stayed for at least 3 weeks and was seen by many people.
Here are some pictures of the stunning Bird which is my first major self found.
The bird was great to photograph.

A close up

You can clearly see the ring in this photo.
And as you can see the bird showed extreamly well

My best photo