Half-arsed Bird Spotting

I needed to nip into work this afternoon for a couple of hours, and thought I'd precede this with a bit of light birding. I had it all planned out - Swithland Wood for a relaxing hour catching up with typical woodland birds and grabbing a few shots. When I got there, the car park was bedlam and every man and his dog, bike and horse seemed to have converged there. Bollocks. So, I resorted to a quick and very half-arsed stop at Swithland Reservoir. There were probably some interesting birds there, but I couldn't be arsed to look. The one bird I did watch was Goldeneye - there was a small group off the dam comprising 5 drakes all displaying and trying to get the attention of a lone female. I like Goldeneyes, and their display is definitely worth making the effort to see. Non-displaying Goldeneye Coot making use of the biggest bird-bath for miles around Before I went into the office, and had another quick look on the adjacent Braunstone estate for Waxwings. For the third time in two days I saw fuck all. On the way out of work at 16:30ish I had another quick look, and this time found 49 perched in a Lombardy Poplar on Hockley Farm Road, just around the corner from the lone berry laden Rowan tree in Avery Hill. Braunstone estate is not the sort of place to park up and get your optics and camera out! 49 Waxwings - trust me High up Waxwing