An early start saw us looking at a drake Garganey from the washland viewpoint at Lakenheath before 7.15am this morning. As we walked the public footpath towards Joist Fen we spotted two Whooper Swans on the river with the Mutes and had good views as one decided to fly towards us to join it's mate.
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| Whooper Swan at Lakenheath |
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| Whooper! |
As we reached Joist Fen we noted five Marsh Harrier and two Common Buzzard soaring over the reserve and as we watched another smaller raptor came in to harass them but with the distance involved it was hard to pin down the ID. Then something incredible happened, rarer than the recent solar eclipse and this too had us out in the middle of nowhere looking at the sky in anticipation and then it happened.......the old fella called a bird and called it right! Common Crane!!! two coming in from the left and sure enough two Common Crane came flying over before landing at the far end of the fen.
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| Marsh Harrier |
Behind Joist Fen hide we found the Fudge duck that's been hanging around here for a while (Thanks Steve for the tip off) and the walk back gave up a couple of Beardies and some noise from a couple of Bittern warming up for the season although you'd be hard pressed to call it "Booming" At the visitor centre a guy had just arrived having picked up a dead Barn Owl at the entrance which sadly appeared to be one of the reserves birds probably hit by passing traffic. The feeders were alive with Reed Bunting. As we left we found a Great White Egret just over the border in Norfolk and pulled over to grab a couple of images from the car. On route to Santon Downham we found a Great Grey Shrike and enjoyed a fly over Goshawk too which was the real bonus of the day. I picked out a Woodlark in flight before we moved on but time had ran away as we enjoyed the Goshawk and we only had time for one final stop as we searched for new arrivals in the Brecks and managed to find a single Stone Curlew giving decent scope views to add the the days totals.
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| Great White Egret |
Year list now at 161
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