Flycatcher Collared

After a reasonably quiet walk around Winterton on Saturday morning I thought the talked up rarity fest was not going to happen. The 2 Avocets and Spotted Redshank over Winterton were unexpected rarities, however not those that have come from the South. Sunday started at 4am for me with a sort of guided walk around Surlingham Church Marsh, a nice stroll followed by a great fry u in the pub. A Sunday afternoon around strumpshaw saw a Red Kite fly over and the first Banded Demoiselle of the year, also a few Swallowtails are on the wing now.
News of the Collared Flycatcher at Holme had me a little twichy, in fact so much so that after a quick bite I found myself on the road, I was shattered so had to think twice, but I told myself to do it or I'd regret it, what a bird too! The bird decided to dissapear for 45mins as soon as I arrived, but soon got picked much to my delight, it showed very well for at least an hour much to the delight of the observers.


After that excitement i decided to spend the last half an hour of light at Titchwell, this proved to be a good idea as I managed to get 3 Temminks Stints, Curlew Sand, Gargany at about 5m in the open (!) and a bittern booming well throughout the visit, a fitting end to a great day, I managed to get home at 10.15 after a 4am start bed was most welcome. Up at 5 on mon for a cbc and then 4 again on tuesday so as I write this I'm pretty tired....survey season is here, a time when bleary eyed wardens are easy to find!
Added to the early mornings I have been managing to get the moth trap on, results have been very good over the past few nights, particularly Saturday night with 59 species. I am identifying as many micros as I can without dissection at the moment, not taking any/many macro moth pictures this year, just micros. A few moth photos attached.





A mass emergence of Scarce Chasers on Monday is worth a mention and the very attractive immature dragonflies were all over the place.



I have also included a couple of pics of the Ruddy shelduck at Cantley. Rather oddly it seems to have managed to tame a pair of Egyptian geese, usually they wont stand for anything to be near them so thats pretty odd, whats more amazing is that they have at least 5 young. This is really odd behaviour, I have heard of Egyptian geese herding horses into the corner of a field because they had young so to find a pair of EG with young running around the feet of the RS was quite extrodinary, glad to see they can make friends after all!