Step 1: Choose a warm, sunny day in mid summer.

Step 2: Take a long lie-in and slowly eat breakfast so as to miss any morning bird activity.

Step 3: Go out at midday.

Step 4: Sit in a hot car in atraffic jam for 30 minutes in order to dull the senses and increase impatience.

Step: 5: If the weather should become windy so much the better, this will drive any small passerines into the undergrowth and make it almost impossible to find birds.

This is exactly how I prepared for my walk along the River Hull to Eske/Pulfin and as a consequence saw almost nothing of note – in fact I may have set a record for the least eventful birdwatching walk in history. The “highlights” were 2 juvenile Grey Herons, a group of 21 Coot, 4 Cormorants, a male Yellowhammer and a female Kestrel. Wow!

In fact the walk was rescued from a total non-event by a noisy Little Owl which flew into a hawthorn tree from a point on the ground where presumably it had just caught something to eat.