Dilemma

I am faced with a dilemma first thing: having arranged to look after our newborn daughter so my wife could grab a couple of hours additional sleep, I find them both sound asleep at 7am. Feeling the call of spring migration, I settle on a hastily self-arranged compromise - a quick check of the hedgerows to the east of the village in the vain hope of finding some early spring migrants, then back home to domestic duties. Six minutes later I find a cracking male Ring Ouzel in the hedgerow by the set-aside:

It is typically flighty and bounces around the hedgerow for a while...

.... before flying out into the field, calling as it does so. It feeds, then flies south:

Delighted with this good local find, the rest of the walk is uneventful, with only the first Tufted Duck of the spring returning to the private pond and the first singing Chiffchaff of 2010 near the church. I return home buzzing: anything is possible, even in Cuddesdon.