Only four days before we leave for Scotland. So many jobs to do at home - and my pager is red hot with news of migrants along the north Norfolk coast. Trying to be dispassionate....mostly failing .....I tell myself that most of them will be possible in Scotland or when we come home.
After a morning when I planted eleven tomato plants in the lean-to greenhouse and Pam did umpteen other jobs, she suggested that we visit Buckenham Marsh.
Police on duty at the junction where we join the Acle Straight heralded an earlier accident leading to a huge tailback. It did not affect us fortunately.
Strumpshaw car park was full, including the field overflow. It's a popular reserve and it is Bank Holiday weekend. The wood the other side of the level crossing was very quiet, one Blackcap treated us to a short song and a Wren shouted from the undergrowth. Stopping at the next station to get my scope ready, I found a very distant Peregrine perched on one of the gates. One of the Cantley birds? Needing this photo for my folder, I had a few shots. This one is mightily cropped but places the bird.
This one is ridiculously cropped.
I spent ten minutes scanning the dyke where the Garganey bred last year, no luck. A handsome pair of Shoveller, Gadwall and Mallard kept us entertained. A warden was out on the marsh checking Lapwing nests, disturbance for us but a necessary chore.
Two Sedge Warblers whistled and chuntered, invisibly, from a thick Hawthorn clump.
Parking at the Fishermen's car park for a different angle view of the marsh, Pam heard a scope peering birder standing on the raised riverbank call, '' I think I've got the Garganey'' to his wife. We turned the car so that I could scope the main pool. Avocet, Wigeon, Teal and Shoveller. We moved on for a different view. By now, the two birders had descended to the road behind us. Pam left to talk to them just as I picked up a male Garganey splashing down on the near edge of the water. I called to her - she didn't hear - continuing to follow the bird's progress along the near edge, mostly shielded by clumps of thick sedge. Pam returned to move the car to what we hoped would be a less inhibited view. Peering through dead weeds and reeds, we saw the male stop on the edge and preen vigorously. Damn. I eventually took a few record shots as he then stopped preening, tucked his head under his wing and went to sleep.
Along with Pied Flycatcher, Garganey is the bird we are least likely to see in Scotland. I was delighted with the bird as I love them. A birder's bird, welcomed by all.
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