Blogging at 20:45 on Sunday 17th December from intended overnighting spot N 52.98778°, W 00.91011° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:52.98778%2C-00.91011
Spent a good bit of the morning with Brian again; helping him with his boat's electrical system and generally catching up.
From Mercia marina I headed off to the Attenborough nature reserve, a site managed by Notts Wildlife Trust. It's a vast area of wetland and woodland right on the edge of the hell-hole that is Nottingham and the large (paid) car parks were unsurprisingly thronged. It didn't matter, though, as the site is so huge that it carried the visitors easily. It helped that many seemingly just hung around the visitor centre and café.
The mix of people was quite odd with about a 50/50 split of MCWs and scuffers. It was quite telling that the three hides on site could only be accessed by entering a code on the hide doors' locks, e-mailed out on request from the wildlife trust.
I quite enjoyed the three hours it took to mooch around approx 3/4 of the site, in spite of the density of birds being quite sparse. Best sightings were a possible male scaup in eclipse and three pintails. There were definitely more MCWs than birds.
From there I bumbled Newark-wards and after a couple of fails found the spot I'm now at and intending to kip. It's quiet, just outside a hamlet and there's a small war memorial here. All good, then... apart from the truly giant sublimely executed fake-topiary structure of a hag overlooking me and menacingly randomly sweeping the landscape. It's outside my back window, it dominates my view... and I swear I've seen the sweeping brush move back and forth.
Sweet dreams.
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