Nick Watmough provides us with his take on this week’s selection of photos submitted to our Recent Sightings team. Thanks Nick, a great choice!

“I honestly cannot remember the last time I reviewed so many images of wet birds – a huge tribute to our regular photographers who were out in all conditions – even Friday 23rd when Storm Ingrid gave the county a right soaking. Well except Tuesday 20th when for the first time in recent history there were no photos on the sightings page. So what did the other six days bring?

Blue 45 – the increasingly grubby White Stork from one of the reintroduction schemes remained faithful to its favourite cabbage patch where it was photographed by Rebecca Bowyer and Dean Pollard. The Great White Egret that Tony Mills found at Marazion looked freshly coiffured by comparison as it posed against the reflections of the reedbed. Both drake Scaup, the Helston Lesser (Rebecca Bowyer) and the Marazion Greater (Martin Webb) continued to provide nice images.

Elsewhere John St Ledger had a productive day out along the Penryn River where he photographed the long-staying Cattle Egret and a Black-necked Grebe. Another day on a different estuary, the Lynher, Rupert Kirkwood captured a small flock of Grey Plover flashing their black armpits as they flew past.

Competing with the stork for the most miserable/bedraggled bird of the week were Kate Dalziel’s three Choughs and R Napp’s disinterested Bonxie at Torpoint. But they all seemed very chipper compared to Paul Bullen’s grumpy fed-up Goldcrest.

It was nice to see some of the gull action at Newlyn reflected on the sightings page with images of the first winter Iceland Gull from Alan Lobb and Rowena Castillo-Nicholls and the young Bonaparte’s Gull from Shaun Grose.

I enjoyed Gavin William’s Russian White-fronted Goose from Bude and the pair of Greylags Vic Booth photographed at Treraven Meadow. A special mention to Steve Wood for the Merlin he photographed at Bray’s Cot on the Lizard – a species we seldom see images of on the Sightings Page and kudos to Deena Sharp for her Kingfisher sitting unobtrusively at the water’s edge at Millbrook.

But for POTW I really wanted to celebrate the photographers who used the flat grey light to their advantage. Originally, I was undecided between three contributions from two of our regular contributors. Firstly, Martin Webb’s pin-sharp Chiffchaff perched on blackberry stem against a clean grey background – simple, subdued and uncluttered. Secondly there was Adrian Lea’s tightly cropped image of a Goldcrest from the beginning of the week which is taken at eye level with the subject orientated to show off the crown and grey shawl and perfectly offset against its evergreen perch. Third was another of Adrian’s contributions – a Water Rail creeping along a shallow ditch in the rain – sharp focus (look at the rain drops on the back) with breast, flanks and mantle beautifully exposed to show off the distinct zones of coloration and nicely offset by the red iris and bill.

However, in the end it was Yorkshire based Martin Roper’s gorgeous study of a Marsh Tit from Wadebridge swayed me. This image captures the subtle plumage gradients of toffee, brown and off-white to perfection – but at the same time does not underexpose the black cap and bib – something that may have been much easier because of the conditions.

So despite the weather and Ingrid’s worst excesses the standard of submissions was last week was extremely high and a big thank you to all our contributors for making adjudicating POTW such fun – here’s to another fabulous year of bird images on the Cornwall Birds pages.”

Congratulations Martin, great shot!