Success

 Thursday, September 17

A planned power cut for our area, scheduled to begin at 8.30 - it did -  encouraged us to spend the day birding. It was tempting to do our north coast run, when birds can be guaranteed. Instead, we drove to Great Cressingham, another Autumn gathering place of our target bird. We've only been to the area once before so it's not at all familiar. The first onion field that we found was red onions in varying stages of harvesting, in a field that seemed to stretch as far as the horizon. My eyes were watering from scope use, not the onions, by the time we'd made several scoping stops, through hedgerows again. Immense fields, no gateways? Rooks, Carrion Crows and Red-legged Partridges. We drove on.

A few pigfields later, we arrived back at the A1065 and the pigfield we'd scanned two years ago.

Another massive Saddleback boar moseying about, the sows were mainly asleep, sprawled on the ground.

 

Turning around to retrace our drive, the field opposite was .......an onion field, white this time. Again, in varying stages of harvest. The part nearest the A1065 - and our only see through place - looked like grey, powdery, undulating, low dunes. Another lengthy scan from varying car positions. Long rows of heaped onions ready for machine pick-up, concealing the open areas between the rows. A scattering of Lapwings and Wood Pigeons. 

We drove on. A hundred metres down the road, a flock of birds hurtled across the road at treetop height. Stone Curlew. Brilliant. It took far too long to find somewhere to turn and to drive back to the onion field viewing gap.

At first, nothing bar Lapwing. Gradually we both noticed  small groups and individual birds scattered on the bare area. Heat haze and distance, plus close vegetation, made viewing frustrating  but I had excellent views through my scope. Enthralled by the sight of more Stone Curlews together than I have ever seen before, I forgot to take a photograph. As I lifted my camera, a calling Buzzard appeared overhead. The squatting birds stood up and, together with the Lapwings, shot into the air. The one photograph I managed included three birds, with images of varying paucity. I'm embarrassed to include them. Both photos were in the one frame. I copied and edited twice. I couldn't see any birds at all in the random shot until I enlarged it.

 

Again, they flew over the road, too far away to use my camera. I calculate that there were between 35 and 40 birds. Possibly more. The flock was not a tight one, birds kept appearing. We parked  in a shady area  to eat lunch before returning for another scan. No birds present. 

Pam thinks that we had the Buzzard to thank for seeing them in the first place, as it had been calling from a distance for some time before the birds flew in. He was definitely responsible for the general exodus.