The Journey Home - 29.8.11

We weren't supposed to be coming home until the Tuesday but Barbara's grand-daughter (Smelly, my name for her!) had been rushed to hospital back home with an asthma attack. So we packed up and left this morning and headed home but news coming through was that she was ok just a little chesty and that she'd probably be staying overnight so no need to speed home. So with that good news we stopped off for a quick burger at McDonalds and a quick 5-10 minutes at Deadman's Hill at Sandon. 2 Red Kites were hunting over a ploughed field just outside the county boundary at Chrishall in Cambs whilst a quick scan of the fields at Sandon saw a covey of 9 Grey Partridge and 52 Stock Dove in the adjacent fields.

UPDATE - As I was packing the car this morning back up in Hemsby I heard an unfamiliar call so unfamiliar that I couldn't even put it to species!! It was a dysillabic call similar to Pied Wagtail but deeper and harsher. I desperately looked for what was making the call when suddenly 2 terns flew NE over the caravan site. I know the calls of the usual terns that i'd expect to see/hear around there (Little, Common, Sandwich and even Arctic) but it wasn't a call i'd put to any of them. So just now i've been checking out tern calls on xeno-canto (a great online bird call library) and the only one I can find that matches the call I heard was that of Roseate Tern!! I certainly wasn't expecting that this morning!! Only my 2nd and 3rd in the UK.