Sunday 2 October 2011

Solitary confinement

I was just getting over a loooooooooonnnnng zzzzzzzzzzzzz and after six days of morn to dusk birding in Norfolk was looking to a 'recovery' day! That is, until Andy Latham called me to say "Solitary Sand in Lancs"!

There's not a lot of point in extending the write up as I've got stacks of things to do except to say...... we went, we saw, we ticked and that was about it! The bird was over 100m distant and clearly the real deal. Fair play to the finder, doing a random duck count and identifying this from such distance! A good grip back after the Devon dip of last November too :-) I even thought I'd got some record shots after watching it perform on 'live view' set at 10x for quite a while - sucker!!

We even encountered that strange moist substance that falls from the sky and unless we get some soon, Venus Pool will be fondly known as Venus Hollow......

Anyway, back to those stacks of things to do! I've got many many Gbs of images from Norfolk and given the number of talks I have to do, I'll have to phase these in over the next couple of weeks - watch this space (below) Oh and I'd better not forget the Covenham American Black Tern!

Here are a few tasters of Norfolk where there was not a rarity in sight (for me anyway). Norfolk however, still turns up plenty of good birds which I'm not likely to see in Shropshire and some amazing moments to capture, like these......

(Keep checking back to see more!)

Cley waders aplenty, including Dunlin (and spot the Little Stint).....



Spot the Little Stints!



A male Ruff that stood out from the crowd....



Marsh Harriers practising their passing skill....



A tantalising view of this outrageous example of bird decadence!



Or this real surprise at a private site (please don't ask)....



It's not all about birds - this Plaice had certainly had it's chips!



Knot much room on this Titchwell Mussel bed.....



A surprise in store under every stone!



Unexpected encounter from the beach!!



As was this Arctic Skua.....



Duelling Barwits!



Contender for Bird of the trip?



A final session with these beauties!



Much much more to come......