Misty Saturday

One of those days that occur at this time of the year where it stays cold and misty all day. Probably because the Letchworth and District Astronomical Society is holding a public observing evening tonight.
Have not been out birding today, just stayed in the warm taking part in the Norfolk Ornithological Association Winter Garden Bird Survey. Nothing unusual so far, a maximum of eight Starlings, eight House Sparrows and six Goldfinch, plus a few of the other regular species.
Having spent the last two weekends in the Royston area I have realised that I have only been birding there twice-once in a failed attempt at finding a Ring Ousel about twelve years ago, and more recently in mid October for a long staying juvenile Red Backed Shrike.
This bird was photographed on October 13th with the 300mm vr lens and a TC17 converter hand held. As it favoured a small copse adjacent to several paths used by walkers it proved to be very approachable.

Spent yesterday morning at reed, near Royston in Herts hoping to get images of the Rough Legged Buzzard that has been in the area for the last week.
It was a freezing morning, with the icy blast coming straight down off the fens which made things very uncomfortable for everyone present, and toppled several scopes.
The Ring Tail Harrier was seen quite a lot west of the A10, and we picked up several Buzzards riding slope to the west, and once or twice the rough Legged appeared behind the trees. Eventually it drifted over the road and flew quite rapidly towards us, ending up over woods to the north east.
Unfortunately,, because of the wind and the speed of the bird my manual focus 500mm Nikkor with a 2x converter could not keep up with it and most of the images were not all that good, but two were ok.