I’d been out for a quick hunt for a big rare bird. No sign of it but they are there and it is perfect habitat. On the way home I went looking for another bird. Hawfinch. There are some huge and unprecedented flocks kicking around the North Downs at present, driven here by the failure of the Beech mast crop in Central Europe and the cold spell. I was following up a couple of sightings which were along the Yew belt on the downs. Hawfinch feed on the Yew and recent sightings have been thickest where there is Yew. So here I was, when I found an old tree with thick limbs down to the ground, so up I went laddering my way up, heading out of the crepuscular gloom of the base towards the sunlight canopy. Near the top I found this nest, just out of safe reach, at least without a rope. I was tempted to make the move but having ripped my trousers to the crotch on the way up I was wary of being found dying at the base of a tree in a state of deshabille ( my underpants). No bird is worth that public shame.  And what connects Lucy (who was named in the Summer of Love after a famous song, itself named after an infamous fungus derivative), GBS and Rod Hull ? They all had a bad fall and no horses, kingsmen or anyone could put them together again.