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Sunday 31 July 2016

Stone Curlew at Titchwell RSPB!


A busy, but successful day all round. My new OS X EI Capitan installed beautifully, which surprised me – but there was one major hiccup..... all my emails that had been archived last week have vanished! That's a few thousand emails and the same in my sent box – this is very frustrating as I never bothered copying most email addresses into my Address Book!!! The good news though, is that my Adobe Photoshop is now working! There are lots of new things to learn on my new OS system, but haven't really got the time to investigate everything right now. I will have to email the Apple Engineers about my old emails and see if they can be retrieved.
I had to go to work today, which was rather frustrating, when good birds were turning up. After arriving home later, a Western Purple Swamphen came up as a Mega on the pager, at Minsmere RSPB and a first for Britain if accepted, I was told!!! I wanted to go, but couldn't go – the thought of driving two hours each way after doing a day's work, just didn't tempt me enough. I continued to think about it and realised that it would be pretty crazy doing this after work and opted for an evening at Titchwell RSPB instead.

As I walked along the main path at Titchwell, the pager bleeped up with Stone Curlew on the freshmarsh! Perfect timing! I passed a birder who kindly told me the exact location, but just before Island Hide I saw the Stone Curlew fly over the main path west and land on the lavender marsh. I spent the evening watching this cracking bird, feeding and preening amongst the vivid purple lavender plants – watching this Stone Curlew amongst the flowers was awesome to say the least! Warden Paul Eele was here, along with Geoff, Pat and a few others. I was captivated by this bird – it couldn't have looked any prettier amidst the purple lavender and with the odd bee bumbling around and the setting sun, it was the perfect scene. I took several phone-scoped videos and watched this bird until 9pm! Also saw two Barn Owls hunting over Thornham, pointed out by Geoff.

There was a massive selection of waders on the freshmarsh, but I was so enthralled by the Stone Curlew, I didn't really pay much attention to the east side of the main path! Birds I did manage to see in the failing light were: tons of gulls, Avocets, Black-tailed Godwits, Starlings, Redshanks, Dunlin, Ruff, Cormorants, Heron, Teal etc.

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