Reed Bunting – forty years ago in my nature notebooks

It’s forty years since I first saw a Reed Bunting. I was so excited about seeing such a rare (to me) bird that I went home and researched it and drew a picture. I was thirteen years old:

I saw a pair of them, a male and a female in March 1977. Here’s the entry in my nature notebooks about them:

Today it’s a very frosty morning on Exminster Marshes and I see one. It’s a male and has the distinctive black head on a sparrow shaped and sized bird. I move closer and manage to get a photograph:

Then I see a female and manage to photograph that as well:

I take a few other shots before a group of noisy cyclists arrive and they fly off across the River.

Beautiful.