Migrant Hope

Thursday March 24

Waking to another perfect spring day, we opted for Titchwell.

No sign of any hirundine at Gunton Lake, cheap (!) petrol at Morrissons in Fakenham, therefore arrival at Titch was not until 11.00 a.m. Tuesday saw the usual parked car across our preferred parking place, empty to-day, we cheered......

Singing Chiffchaffs accompanied our walk out to the first viewing seat for the freshmarsh. All the expected waders and ducks - Avocet, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Ruff, teal, Gadwall, Shelduck and Shoveller - no sign of yesterday's Garganey.

I enjoyed photographing a superb male Teal feeding in the channel below.

From a seat overlooking the seaward end of the marsh, I experimented with taking photos by holding my Ixus upi to the scope lens. Most of the shots were not sharp enough, this Pintail is reasonable.

Two hours later, after a stint in Parrinder Hide trying to explain to an elderly woman why a passing flock of silent, lacking any ruddiness, no obvious white outer tail feathers and just, well, the jizz, were Twite and not Linnets.... we made our way back for a late lunch at Brancaster. A banana had suatained us ....just.

I successfully photographed the shoals of Rudd viewable in the pathside fresh water, lovely fish with their orange-red tails and fin tips. For some reason and, after several hours of puzzling and investigation of various options, these images were saved in RAW not the usual JPEG, as were the ones of Avocet and Ruff. What a puzzlement. I can now view them but they will not load to my Blog nor to my editing programme.

The Little Owl was sitting in its hole in the dead tree at Felbrigg. My photos weren't good enough, I'll see what the ones I took through the scope with Pam's camera are like, hers has a bigger zoom.
Not a great improvement.........more practice required.
Excuse....it was a long way away.

We loved our outing again, in the sun and warmth. Shame about the migrants !