Return of the Skylark?

TUB  (Nadia Attura)

Got slaughtered today at football - 6-2. It was 4-0 after 15 minutes, but to be fair to us, we turned it on during the final quarter of the game by scoring 2 goals. You win some, you lose some.

Yesterday morning, I visited the Scrubs for the first time this month and apart from the usual breeding suspects including observing a couple of lovely Lesser Whitethroats, I saw a distant Little Egret (our 5th record), a female Grey Wagtail and most surprisingly a Skylark (or two). After having our hopes raised in March when a pair settled only to be seemingly discouraged by persistent disturbance, it was a very welcomed sight. The bird I saw flew unflushed out of the grassland as if it was out getting a pint of milk. It seemed as though it had been living at The Scrubs for always. Had our Skylarks remained all this time and are indeed breeding, or was this just a transient bird? It seems hard to believe that they had escaped detection for all this time.

Also, later I spoke with the guy organising the trip to Costa Rica that he wants me to lead. He's going to send me an itinerary and costings and we're tentatively talking about an 8 day trip in early December.

Anybody out there interested in going on that trip with me?

Today, I spent time writing my Budapest piece for Bird Watching Magazine and mapping out my article on my favourite sites in London for BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Best get on with it then.....