Oriental Pratincole and White Spotted Bluethroat highlight the end of my holiday!

Oriental Pratincole, Frampton RSPB

Wheatear at Frampton RSPB

Sedge Warbler at WWT Welney

After seeing Gary Thoburn's awesome picture of the White Spotted Bluethroat on Surfbirds {also see his website for picture: http://garyts-birdpix.fotopic.net/p64671661.html) I decided to pop along to Welney again to see if I could improve on my sad attempts the last time I saw it! (see pictures added to my post 22nd April last night) Alas I did not and it took ages to appear and my two pictures were rubbish, but did get an awesome picture (even though I say so myself!) of a Sedge Warbler.

After watching my brief encounter with the bluethroat I walked back to the centre and gave in and bought the 2nd edition Collins Bird Guide which was reduced to £15.30! (cheapest I have seen it) - I nearly succumbed to a bar of 'Divine'chocolate until I saw the price - could not believe it, a staggering £1.30!!!!!! so that helped with the diet! Dave Holman then walked in and kindly pointed out the pair of Gargeney and a Greenshank

Sat in my deckchair by the car in carpark and had my latest fad in a sandwich: philadelphia ('light' due to boring diet) with stem ginger and lettuce! and coffee fix. Now I was supposed to be going home and doing loads of mega boring jobs BUT it was a sunny, glorious day and my last day before returning to work tomorrow, so I had a look at the map for inspiration and decided to go back via Swaffham and to NOA Hempton Reserve and have a look around Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve which I have not actually properly been to yet.

Nothing doing really at NOA Hempton apart from long tailed tits, blackcap singing, hedge sparrows, chaffinches, blue, great and coal tits. I was just getting back in the car to go to Sculthorpe when Andy Wilkinson very kindly rang me to tell me there was an Oriental Pratincole at RSPB Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire!!!! (Andy has the full RBA pager service and knows that I Only have Norfolk/Suffolk news) Andy was not going as he had only just returned from a 10 day WP twitch in the Saraha etc with Justin and Chris L and Lee Gregory at 4am this morning! Also got a couple of messages from other Norfolk birders too - thank you (you know who you are!)

Sod the jobs at home! Cruised (well kind of!) to Frampton - well actually I did for part of the journey as there were some incredibly annoying slow vehicles along the A17! The last time I went to RSPB Frampton was 10 years ago when I lived for a short while in Algarkirk (couple of villages before Frampton) when I was married (long story!) I am ashamed to say I have not been back since and WOW it certainly looks different now - like a massive version of Titchwell RSPB!!! Very impressive and some good birds seen there looking at the daily log including Lesser Yellowlegs in early May, spotted flycatcher etc etc. Anyway back to THE bird. After getting out of the car very quickly (as you do) I walked with 3 other birders to the path by East Hide - it was an incredible distance to walk, when you are desperate to see a good bird. On route a wheatear flashed by. The north east wind still continued to cut through you, but not as strong as it has been. Approx 100 people congregated whilst I was there. Dave Holman kindly let me view the bird through his scope - and there it was hunched down next to a dock plant on the far side of the water, only revealing its head! (4pm) Some other birders were highly amused when I showed them my 'record shot' of this!!! but as I pointed out, I knew what the coloured smudge next to green was!!! My shots did improve as you will see on here - the bird became quite mobile and was regularly harrassed by a lapwing. At one point the bird flew over closer to a nearer spit not far from where we were all standing - the colours were stunning in the sunshine - cracking bird (understatement!). I realised I could hear a very familiar voice saying 'Twitcher' to me - it was John Furse who had also 'Twitched' the bird from Friary Hills (slightly further than me John!). Lots of amusing banter going on inc. 'have you Norfolk birders got a licence to come here'. Anyone going tomorrow needs to have a massive great lens or you would certainly get some good digiscoped shots. My arms ached from holding the camera for so long and decided to walk further up the path and walk up the steps (opposite East Hide) to the seabank where there were a massive flock of Brent Geese on the marsh and also a wheatear that another birder had spotted. I was still watching the pratincole at 5.45pm - on the way back I had lovely views of at least half a dozen Yellow Wagtails bounding across the pools of avocets and other waders. Photographed a wheatear sitting on a fence post, not far from the reserve centre. The warden had kept the centre open which was very helpful for the loos! and also for me to stock up on supplies, as I had run out ages ago! Centre was very smart inside and they sell self-service coffee, tea, hot chocolate, soup and also flapjacks, eccles cakes, chocolate, crisps etc. The warden was very polite and helpful and later on informed me that a hobby had just flown through. Sat in my deckchair by car eating my eccles cake with remains of my coffee and drove home with a smile on my face and then I remembered I am at work tomorrow!

Hope you enjoy the pictures! This is the first and will be the last video I add to my blog as it has taken forever to load!!

TWITCHERS/BIRDERS WATCHING THE ORIENTAL PRATINCOLE
AT RSPB FRAMPTON MARSH.