The Juvenile Birder

 Crakes and Rare Herons! We arrived at North Cave Wetlands (East Yorkshire) at 5:30am, in hopes of seeing a reported Spotted Crake. When we arrived, it didn't take long before it was spotted. The bird was showing well from Turret Hide on Island Lake on the mud in the Northeast corner. It ran, at speed in and out of the reeds and started feeding alongside a Water Rail. It was distant but showed well. It was just difficult to see the plumage, as the sun light wasn't located in that area yet. A Water Rail came out, away from the Spotted Crake, but still on Island Lake and surprisingly showed well in the water. A Red Kite also flew past with several Green and Common Sandpipers present. We then headed over to Pagham Harbour (Sidlesham, West Sussex) which took us, at least 5 hours, due to the Sunday motorway works (set off at 8:30, arrived at 1:40). We went...optimistically...once again...for a reported Squacco Heron. There, we parked in a layby at the end of Mill Lane and alongside ...

 Winter Thrushes and Elusive Rails! It was our first time visiting Leighton Moss and we were very excited as we had heard a lot of great things about it. ​In the parking lot, we saw a Fieldfare in a bush eating some berries, a stunning winter finch tick to start the day. We then went to the feeding station where we saw Great Tits, Eurasian Blue Tits, Common Chaffinches, European Robins, Common Pheasants and European Goldfinches but my favourite were the Marsh Tits, another lifer. We first went to the Grisedale Hide where somebody had said they had seen four Red Deer earlier on. It was around 12:40pm so it unlikely for us to see the Red Deer but was still possible. We saw Mallards, Northern Shovelers, Eurasian Teals, Northern Pintails and a Great White Egret out on the lake along with around 20 Common Snipe feeding along the edge. After a while, someone pointed out a Water Rail that was just behind all the Common Snipe. I saw it feeding but it wasn't the right lighting to see the pl...