Great Snipe again!!! Crazy Bird!!!

GREAT SNIPE - CLEY NWT

Yep, I am a crazy bird - well there weren't quite the words my mother used, when I told her at lunchtime that I had left my house at 4.15am to go and see a Great Snipe at Cley. I got a massive nagging down the phone about how irresponsible and crazy it was to do that before work. There is no way in a million years was I going to confess that I had also been yesterday!!!

When I got home last night and saw Pete Snook's Video I decided I just HAD to see this bird in daylight. I am a tough cookie and survived on an hour and a half sleep today! Right now though I am dying with tirdness. But the outcome was that I had 2 hours of awesome views of a displaying Great Snipe with the sun rising from Avocet Hide at Cley with excellent company.

I left King's Lynn at 4.15am and arrived at Cley just before 5am. On route I had a fantastic surprise of a Little Owl sitting on a telegraph wire right next to the main road at East Rudham! On arrival at Cley, I was not the first car to arrive - in fact the 'triangle' at the bottom of 'Old Woman's Lane' was full and I had to park along the lane. Walked to the hides as much too early to be running anywhere! I got the last 'seat' spot in the hide on the left hand side and David Norgate joined me a bit later on. The hide was full pretty quickly! I said on my post via my iphone this morning "Still there at 5am and got some shots!!!! Awesome!!!!" When I just checked my camera my first sighting of the GREAT SNIPE was in fact 5.18am and my last sighting was 6.52pm. You could have dropped a pin in the hide apart from a few whisperings, which is how is should be. Really annoys me if loads of people are talking loudly. The Great Snipe tantalised us by hiding behind grasses and posing every now and again and displaying! It was wonderful to hear it calling aswell! When it displayed and called its beak was almost upright, which I manged to get a picture of. Also got a record flight shot. A Roe Deer also walked across in front of us all! Avocets displaying and a Green Sandpiper was seen. Swallows were twittering away and it made me wish that I dragged myself out of bed more often for daybreak. The light was beautiful and it was worth every hours lost sleep to have two hours of watching this stunning bird in beautiful light. The Great Snipe flew off into the middle of the marsh at a round 6.62am and this was a good time to leave. Left the hide at 7.10am. Left Cley at 7.15am and got to King's Lynn for work by 8am!

It is now 8.30pm and I have not even looked at my pictures on camera properly yet! Will post a few pictures tonight.

FANTASTIC BIRDING WEEK!!!

GREAT SNIPE

Roe Deer, Avocet Hide, Cley NWT.

Second Video of the GREAT SNIPE
By Pete Snook!