Siberian Stonechats

A male Siberian Stonechat blissfully unaware of the fact England's goalie dropped the ball in the back of the net a few hours before.

We spent the day in the ricefields just outside town, I was too tired after boozing rather heavily and staying up late to watch the footy.

Lots of common birds in the padis, Siberian Stonechats being the second commonest (after Skylarks). The young must have just left the nests and were down in the grass as the adults stayed put watching over them.

The males are particularly striking.

But the females are tamer...............

Also around were lots and lots of Chestnut Eared Buntings.

And quite a few Night Herons too...........

My fave summer visitor is the Black Browed Reed Warbler but all the singing ones we found weren't in convenient places to photograph. This was the best I could manage.

Other interesting stuff around included a couple of Kestrels, a Wryneck and an immature Kittiwake at the river mouth in Kamiso.

So I didn't think England played that badly. The doom and gloom on some of the broadsheet blogs (and gloating by ABE's) is so over the top hysterical I got tired of looking at them. So we learned that England aren't that fantastic as a team, several of the players aren't that great either and they don't have much chance of winning the tournament. Well duh...............

At least they didn't lose and if the ref had been looking for a bit of glory Carragher could easily have conceded a penalty and got sent off.

More torture lays ahead on Friday, watching England is never fun but not watching them in a World Cup would be even worse. TWO early goals this time please...............

Thanks for clicking this link.