Almost drizzled out.

Oof, what a morning! At first, I was all excited because the rain did quit early, as I am sure you all hoped, and the radar looked nice and clear. Then, when I got out to the Ackerdijkse Plassen, I was reminded that soaking drizzle does not appear on radar, and I only dared take out my camera a couple of times.

Happily, one of those times was when this dashing sparrowhawk surprised the heck out of me and landed on a grassy berm just 10 yards in front of me. I had to shoot through a screen of tall reeds, but they were sparce enough and close enough to me that they barely degraded the image.

It didn’t take long for ol’ hawkeyes to spot me through the same reeds, however. Can you tell how I knew that my cover was blown?

And that’s it for today, I’m afraid, but luckily I still have a couple pictures from yesterday that I haven’t shown you yet. Here are a slew of curlews waiting for the ground to thaw enough for them to go foraging in it with those amazing beaks.

Here’s a passel of black-tailed godwits in a similar boat.

Here’s a common redshank, on the left, and an oyster catcher, on the right, just standing around on the ice.

And here’s a lapwing, on the left, and a redshank getting to work, on the right, after the ice finally melted.

Lastly, here’s a handsome ring-necked pheasant rustling up his own breakfast and completely unaware of all that ice.