Return of the prodigal

My New Year Resolution will be to return to the early days of our AWG Blog when I used to post with some regularity.  But for some reason I lost the habit and was embarrassed to have to ask Stewart how to access this posting screen!  But I thought if I put formal notification of my intention to resume periodic contributions, then I'd be forced to go through with it

Recent sightings of note have been:
*  seven Buzzards over our house at Titlington Mount on 16th December.
*  while in the hide on the southern shore of Cresswell pond on 18th December there were c. 350 Pink-footed Geese (from the reputed several thousand in the area at present); many hundreds of Wigeon and Lapwing;  plenty of Redshank, many moving about by repeated hopping on one leg with the other tucked up;  a nice pair of close confiding Merganser.  But perhaps best of all was that on the western shore, some distance away from the hide, was a large adult Otter happily eating something - probably a fish since this time of year doesn't really offer much in the way of young chicks to catch.  It stayed put for a good five minutes so all in the group I was with had plenty of time to get decent views, but not close enough to get any useful photos.