A Beautiful Day!

SATURDAY 11th August
I was at work this morning, so couldn't get out until later this afternoon, but it was so worth it. It was a beautiful day, sunny, not too hot and the skies this evening were just so stunning.

Went to visit my parents for a while. Mother gave me some cuttings from the EDP about the owners of the King's Lynn Eagle Owls (will update on this later). I then cruised along the coast road in glorious sunshine. I had a lovely chat with the lady of the house who found the Rose-coloured Starling at Wells – she sent me a lovely email yesterday (10th) to say she had seen the rose-coloured starling again this morning at 9am – here are some extracts from her email:

"It was SO wonderful to “host” 5 days of you and your friends in Wells. We had never experienced anything like it. Everyone was so friendly, informative, helpful and aware that they were in our space. We had heard some bad reports of twitchers and rather wondered what was ahead of us, though we had no part in telling anyone of the arrival of the rose coloured starling....."
 "I did see it today, about 9.0am, flying from the tree across the creek........... If it reappears I will let you know."

"We collected +/-£150 for the air ambulance, which will be very gratefully received."

The weirdest thing is, the lady sent this email back in June!!! – its only taken an unbelievable two months to arrive in my mail box!!!! It was nice to catch up with her again and she was asking me advice on buying binoculars and I recommended Cleyspy to her. I have a feeling we will all be visiting that tree in her little quayside garden again one day!

Anyway I carried on driving along the coast road and found the car naturally heading towards Cley! Sat at Coastguards and had my tea: a quorn and salad sandwich and a fruit salad. Sticking to this diet now more seriously than ever and I won't be swayed, not even for the Cley Deli 'Pear and Ginger Cake'!!! Sue and Paul Bryan pulled up in the carpark for their Red-necked Phalarope year tick! I wished I had walked down them with as they saw three Yellow Wagtails and also a few (can't remember exactly how many now) Wheatears in the Eye Field, which I didn't see when I walked down alone to North Hide! Eddie text to say he had a Caspian Gull from Teal Hide. I had better views of the Red-necked Phalarope this evening in sunshine from North Hide and then walked back to find the Wheatears – I scanned the fields for ages, but couldn't find any. A meadow pipit sat on the fence wires and I watched a juv linnet sitting on the shingle being fed by parent, which was really sweet! Goldfinches and Swallows added to the mix as the sun started to set. Such dramatic, colourful skies this evening.

Parked the car at the bottom of Old Woman's Lane and walked to the hides. Lots of people in Teal Hide this evening! The Caspian Gull had re-located to North Scrape – typical! I did see a Curlew Sandpiper though and tons of funky, pink gulls, oh and a Yellow-legged Gull pointed out to me by Eddie. A Garganey also flew in on Pat's Pool. Someone in the hide (male) commented on how he was looking forward to seeing the party pictures of the girls from work on my post – 'never mind about the bird pictures Penny' he smiled cheekily'. I am looking forward to getting up to date with all of my pictures again!!! I was keeping up with pictures on my posts this year, but it seems to have slipped again over the last couple of months. Will try hard to catch up soon. Roller pictures will be posted Monday evening! Left the hide at dusk and drove back home. Where did the weekend go!

The Rutland Bird Fair starts this Friday! Need to buy my tickets on line yet!

PICTURES TO BE ADDED