60 UP............... Norfolk Stars Again

Lapwings .

I teamed up with Dan and Michael on Saturday 10 Th December and we set of for Cley Marshes at 4.30 am in the hope of seeing the Western Sandpiper , we arrived in good time just as the pager informed us that it was still there showing from Pats Pool , great we parked up and headed to Pats pool , we got into the first hide No birders , went to the second hide and instantly realised we would be looking into Sun , and there was only one birder in this hide and by which time we had a small following of birders behind us , the guy said " its showing from the hide over the other side of the pool , so without haste we ended up in our third hide in about 10 minutes , Phew !!!!  and within a minute or two i was straight onto the first winter Western Sandpiper i quickly got Dan and Michael onto the bird ,  it was with a small flock of Dunlin , now i am no expert on " Peeps " but the features i did notice were the following : the rather long thin bill was evident ,as were the  white breast patches , the lore's were white and there is a small whitish super behind the eye , rather long legged , the crowned appeared faintly streaked , the overall profile reminded me of a very small Dunlin,  and is a very welcome lifer which brings my wader list in the UK to 60 ,  we watched it for a short while when a all of a sudden a Peregrine flew through flushing everything into the air , although most of the birds settled back again the majority of small waders flew off to safer grounds and we did nt see the Western Sandpiper again in next 3 hours we spent there , however it did re appear later in the afternoon when we were on our way back home . Sorry for lack of pictures as i spent most of my time trying to pick out features on the bird however there are a few photos on various blogs and on Surf birds : 

http://www.surfbirds.com/

Green Winged Teal.

We did see this Green Winged Teal which was quite distant but showed well through the scope and was a welcome year tick for us all .

Green Winged and Eurasian Teal .

There were very good numbers of Golden Plovers Dan made a count of 500 + and there were an equal number of Lapwings ( see top photo ) , there were lesser numbers of Black Tailed Godwit , Redshank  and Avocet  where Michael counted 16 birds , we did not have long here as i had to get back home as i had other arrangements in the evening however we had a good time with lots to look at , we did see a female Marsh Harrier on one of the banks.

Marsh Harrier.

And we also had very close views of this fine male Pintail which is one of my favourite ducks.

Male Pintail.

And then it was time to head home , just like to thank Mike and Dan as ever for their company .