White Stork
I again joined Brendon this time on a trip to Norfolk and returning home via East Hertfordshire. We were heading north and had reached Cambridgeshire when he said we’ll make a detour to Welney WWT to look for a
White Stork. We arrived and parked up and scanned the field it’d been in the previous day from a couple of vantage points but failed to see it. We then popped into the reserve car park to see if it’d moved but a couple of
Tree Sparrow were the only thing of note.
As we were pulling out the car park a message popped up saying the Stork was still there so we drove back and this time walked the river path. As I was walking up a Marsh Harrier swooped down and mobbed the White Stork and as you can see from my photo above it was only the top half of the bird that was visible so no wonder we missed it first time around.
Pectoral Sandpiper
Spoonbill
Snettisham RSPB was our next stop. I hadn’t been here since 2006 when I ticked a
Little Auk on one of the pits. There was something to see virtually all the way down to the southern end of the pits including a year tick
Little Tern but sadly the
White-rumped Sandpiper wasn’t one of them. Just before reaching the last hides we bumped into Phil Bishop and Colin Maynard who said the other target bird was showing. After a quick chat we parted ways and sat down to scan through the numerous waders only to get a call from Phil to say the bird was now visible from the next hide back towards the car park.
From the rotary hide we finally laid eyes on the Pectoral Sandpiper as it proved the mud. Also seen were 23 Spoonbill doing as they do sleeping. As we walked back to the car Brendon mentioned he’d seen a Turtle Dove from the area we were in on his last visit and within seconds one flew past us and landed on the beach! It got even better when another 4 flew past along the beach setting a record flock for me.
Night Heron
With no sign of any
Curlew Sandpipers we set off for home stopping at Rye Meads RSPB reserve on the way. Here from the Draper hide we waited along with a hide full of other birders including James Walsh. 20 minutes elapsed before someone spotted it tucked into the far bottom right corner of the marsh. When the wind blew the willows out of the way you could see it and I managed a lucky record shot of my 5th
Night Heron in the UK and my first anywhere since 2012. Typically soon after we left it flew out and landed in front of the hide briefly!
An excellent days birding
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