How many Brents?

Spent the weekend with Jaffa and Helen in Exeter. Twitched a Great-grey Shrike at Warren House Inn for Jaffa's attempt at his Devon year list and also helped out with a WEBs count on the River Exe. Got into all sorts of trouble trying to count the Brents- so took this photo (above) and then counted the dots.
Mananged to catch up with three of the invasion army of Cattle Egrets at the Exe Estuary.

SPRING AGAIN

It is February 8th- Purple Plums are in blossom, Magnolias are about to burst and daffs etc are well out. This has got to be the earliest I can recall. Saw a Silver Wattle in Putney in full flower last week- the guy there told me that it had been out a week or so. What happened to winter?