I was feeling pretty downhearted when I returned to the farm this morning – what with an evening of admin balancing a laptop on my knee and the lack of birds yesterday there wasn’t much to enthuse me. And tghere it was!

In the hedge by the entrance we had a mixed tit and finch flock. Chaffinches, great tits, a greenfinch, coal tit…

It’s not easy peering out of the car into a hedge, but it was a good start. By the time I’d found the keys to the centre and put some more food out I’d added jackdaws, a robin and blackbirds to the list. A pair of mallard flew over as I started watching properly, a wood pigeon followed and dunnocks hopped around the base of the feeder.

To be honest I was a bit upset I hadn’t brought the camera, a feeling that increased when a reed bunting took up position in a bare branched apple tree by the vegetables, being joined moments later by a yellowhammer.

As I went back into the main room to use the telescope I noticed movement by the wilow arches – a goldfinch, followed by three more – a veritable charm of goldfinches on a grey day.

When I got to the telescope I couldn’t believe my eyes. A long-tailed tit on the fat balls, then another. In the end we had four at the same time. I’d heard them calling yesterday but hadn’t seen one.

What a turn round, but with no camera and no witnesses who will ever believe me after yesterdays grim showing?

This particularly true as after writing this I spent ten minutes straining to see any avaian movement at all, finally adding a blue tit, a pair of rooks and twenty five jackdaws to the list (the jackdaws were sitting on telephone wires – that’s how I managed to count them). The reed bunting came back and the dunnocks and blackbirds reappeared – with a white shoulder on the male, it’s easy to identify the blackbirds as the same pair. Several female chaffinches lurked in the hawthorn, pretending to be more interesting than they really are.

I’ve decided I like my job again…