Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed that I’ve not been talking very much about actual birding lately, and that the “year-list” counter to the right of this column has been resolutely stuck on 396 for almost a fortnight: this has been because a) I’ve had a stinking cold, and b) so has the weather here in the UK - except yesterday when the weather felt a little better. Unfortunately I decided not to go out yesterday, but wait until today instead…

There have been four Common Cranes Grus grus coming into roost on the Exminster Marshes (a small RSPB Reserve on the Exe Estuary in Devon) for a couple of weeks, and since I haven’t seen a Common Crane for about fifteen years (I don’t fly anywhere this particular crane species does) and they are remarkably evocative and beautiful birds, I thought that it would be well worth the 300-mile or so round trip to go and see them.

I don’t get down into Devon very often these days, which is a great shame. It’s a beautiful county, and holds some genuinely scarce birds (in terms of the UK anyway). As well as the cranes, I would be able to get good views of Cirl Bunting (a mainly southern European species right on the edge of its range in the UK, which is only common at a handful of sites in Devon), forest birds like Common Crossbill and Hawfinch, and flocks of ducks, geese, and shorebirds on the Exe’s mud-flats. It would be a good day, I thought to myself…

Unfortunately, Sunday Feb 19th will be remembered (by me anyway) as the “day that never got light”, “the day it became dark again at 10:00am”, “the day it rained for 24 hours”…oh, you get the picture. Sadly the poor old weather got sick again. Having rallied and risen from its bed yesterday, it collapsed back in a weary heap today - and lay their moaning with its head in its hands feeling sorry for itself.

Still, I’d made the effort to get up at 04:30am, I’d emptied my bank account to get enough petrol to get to Devon and back, and there were birds to be seen. I was “Mr Optimistic”, “Mr Positive”, and I was going to see them…

Now - to cut a long story short - if you like your birds wet and cold, if you enjoy watching ducks on a windswept marsh sheltering from the rain as you stand sheltering from the rain on a windswept marsh - you’d have had a blast today. This would be memorable birding, a diary highlight…If on the other hand you’re just a normal sort of birder who doesn’t think rivulets of rain “tickle” as they run down your neck but just make you damn cold and wet instead, that the English countryside is not at its best when viewed in almost monochromatic shades of grey, that slopping through mud stopped being hugely enjoyable when you were about twelve years old - then you’ll understand how the day went. I suppose if not, you’ll think I’m just complaining…

But I’m not really - I’m just telling it like it was. The Exminster Marshes is a beautiful place when illuminated by even just one ray of sunlight, but when its the same colour as the mist, the sky, the murky waters of the Exe, the fog on my glasses, the drips of water plip-plopping off the end of my nose, it really isn’t. It’s even less beautiful when you belatedly learn that the Cranes leave the marshes at very first light (how could they tell today, I felt like asking?) to feed elsewhere - not an hour or two afterwards as you’d thought.

Right, change of plan called for. I already knew that the cranes had been seen feeding on maize fields on a farm about fifteen miles away. The drive there would take me close to the renowned Haldon Forest, a great site later in the year for watching raptors, but good right now for Common Crossbills and other forest birds. Good, that is, when rain clouds aren’t drifting through it. I should have realised of course on a rainy day that visibility would be practically zero here - Haldon is practically a mountain, reaching into the clouds at the dizzying heights of - erm - 250 meters above sea-level. 250m? I used to be able jump that high when I was younger. I tell you, when the weather ‘closes in’ round here, it closes in and closes down. It’s like some huge hand has shaken out a grey fog which settles down over the bumps and folds of the hills like a sheet on a bed. I didn’t get out of the car…

Oh well, there was still the cranes. Finding four huge birds like Common Cranes on a maize field shouldn’t be difficult. For one thing maize stalks are green and short, Cranes are grey and tall. Fields on the whole in winter are brown and flattish, Cranes are grey and, well - tall. Farm fields in the uneven geography of Devon aren’t designed like the vast grain fields in the flat reclaimed county of Norfolk - they’re quite small, and there are plenty of criss-crossing narrow roads to give access to tractors and ploughs - and birders. This would be easy enough surely?

Not really. The clues can be found in the words “grey” and “uneven”. Factor in the cunning of distinctly wild birds who don’t like being near roads and a farmer who doesn’t want birders on his land (which is absolutely fair enough of course), and the views of these extraordinarily stately birds - when you finally get them - come to resemble something like looking at four soggy grey sacks lying in a dip about a mile away…

Which is what the artistic image I’ve created and posted below is meant to show. I’m quite proud of this picture really: it shows the landscape as viewed through my camera lens pretty well. You can even see the red of one of the birds’ crowns. And that’s where I’m going to stop for now - my creative juices are all used up, and I need more tea after such strenuous efforts. I’ll get round to adding the cranes (and a handful of other species) to my year-list shortly (when I’ve dried off and warmed up anyway)…