Lesser Spotted Tom

There we were quietly watching a pair of Common Terns feeding their chicks, when the hide starts to shake as a couple of kids run in, their Mums soon follow and there's lots of shushing going on but they keep bouncing around on the bench. I resort to lowering my binoculars and the turn of the head and smile at the Mums, which really means "excuse me we're trying to watch birds here".

Next I know there's someone right next to me - touching me - actually no their tapping me. "Can I have a look through those please?" Time to put Mr Grumpy away and smile and mean it. "Of course you can" Not sure how much he saw through the binoculars, but he says he saw the ducks and he was happy and he said thank you"

A couple of minutes later they leave, the Mums say Thanks and I say No problem.

Ten minutes after that we wander on too and as we're approaching the next hide, here they are again just coming out. The lad jumps up on a log, bounces up and down and gets his Mum to take his picture, he then spots us, smiles and says You too. So I zoom in on him with the 500mm, and show him the photo.

"It's a Lesser Spotted Tom" his Mum says, "Oh why do they have to grow up?"

I respond with "Yup, and why do we have to grow old?" and think to myself "And when did I turn into a Grumpy Old Man?"

Thanks for the life lesson Tom.

You'll find another youngster on RCB's 200th.