Reluctant Birding?...

This year I have found myself to be far more committed to birding, so far, all county!! But for some strange reason this weekend, a weekend off work too!, I just couldn't be arsed!!??... I reluctantly got out of bed yesterday with every intention of 'doing Priorslee at least'!!...
It never happened, instead I found myself lighting my wood burner & crashing on the sofa with bacon & egg sarnies, watching 'I'm Alan Partridge'!! (at least I got a partridge in doing this, more than can be said for sodding Painsbrook Lane, which after 3 visits this week has still failed to produce a ****ing Grey Partridge!!)...
So, Sunday morning.... a long lie in bed with Mand (& very nice it was too!!), but she had to leave after midday for work... So I decided to get my motovation levels above the 0.3 they were currently reading & headed off to VP!

I was pretty chuffed to go actually, as I aint put much time in on the owd patch this year. There was 4 Gadwall present, 2 drake Pintail, 20+ Teal on the pool, with 11 Pochard on the trout pool... Then the VP Bittern put in a sporadic moments of 'good views', incl. a flight view...
A quick chat with a few local birders I knew it was home for me for Sunday din-dins via the pub for a couple of pints of the old 'black stuff'!!
I was just chillin' when the old mobile went & it was ze Guru! He had had a Kumlien's Gull at Priorslee with Jim!! Now Kumlien's aint a full species, a sub-sp. of Thayer's I believe?... Anyway... there was a day when Caspian wasn't a full sp. too!!!... So, off to Priorslee!!...
I arrived in a minor snow blizzard, with biting cold winds, to join Jim, Andy, Dave & Paul... Fortunately the 1st w. Glaucous Gull was present & showing well (& had been for a couple of hours)... It was soon after I arrived that confirmation came through that the Kumlien's was in fact a Glaucous x Herring hybrid that had been seen at Belvide Res. (info. thanks to Steve Nuttall!!)...
Soon Damo arrived to life tick the Glauc., followed shortly by Rob, a year tick in the bag for him...
So, despite grim weather, lack of year ticks, lack of 'get up & go'... not often in Shropshire you nip out' for a couple of hours birding & see Bittern & Glaucous Gull!!!... So, I aint to down about it at all...
Grey Partridge, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Crossbill, Curlew, Merlin, Little Owl & Short-eared Owl still remain target birds for the owd county year list!!.... Still on 108 species!!!...