The story so far.
Got up at 1.30AM Saturday, drove for five and half hours, waited a bit, had epic views of the Black-browed Albatross
Gratuitous new pics of Albatross
Sorry can't help myself😀
Anyway we re-join our hero (me) sat outside the visitor center at RSPB Bempton having made the decision to head south to RSPB Frampton Marsh to try and see the White-tailed Lapwing that has been knocking around the country for some time. This would be a lifer for me.
Now despite travelling over 600 miles to see an Albatross, I'm not that much of a Twitcher and so had resisted this bird, which is basically a medium size brown wader and most of the pictures I've seen of it suggests it spends it's time some distance from the nearest viewpoint so couldn't get motivated. However now it was in a direct line between me and home so was a no-brainer to call in for it, would basically be a slap in the face for the Birding Gods if I didn't go!!!
Jumped in the car and after a pleasant drive listening to Fighting Talk on the radio and admiring the Fenland Countryside I arrived at Frampton Marsh at about 12.30. A quick chat with the staff in the visitor center where I discovered I had made a bit of an error, for some reason I had it in my head that the bird was near the visitor center, I thought it could be scoped from the carpark!! Wrong !! Typically it was on the very far side of the reserve another blooming route march, albeit through very pleasant countryside😡. I headed off deciding to ignore everything and power walk to the East Hide, so quick was I that it even registered as exercise on my phone app, which never happens on a birding walk, 0.82 miles at average of 3mph, I'm practically a super-athlete😲!!
Anyway I arrived at the hide, the dust cloud settling behind me, hardly out of breath at all😏, there were a couple of people in the hide, I enquired if the bird was showing, it was, though distantly to the right of the hide, unfortunately the only window that it could be viewed from was, 90% occupied by a large gentleman with a long lens, I perched on the edge of the bench and scanned with me bins picking out the bird at distance, graciously the guy with the camera leaned back 3 whole inches to allow me to get some shots!! Difficult at the distance to get anything good but managed a few.
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| White-tailed Lapwing |
I was actually quite pleased how these came out considering usually in these circumstances my camera insists on focusing on everything but the bird, delivering pin sharp blades of grass with a blurred bird behind it! It was very frustrating with the bird lurking at distance, the guy said that it sometimes comes down right in front of the hide, so there was hope!
The view from the hide was quite good with plenty of other birds to see, hundreds of Black-headed Gulls, couple of thousand Brent Geese, I gave them a grilling in the hope of a Red-breasted Goose or a Black Brant but to no good effect. A nice summer plumage Black-tailed Godwit flew in and there were a few Avocet, Redshank and Ruff knocking about.
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| Avocet |
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| Black-tailed Godwit |
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| A few of the many Brent Geese |
The star bird crept a little closer, but any hopes of it coming closer still were dashed when three photographers stood right out in the open to the left of the hide, in full view of the bird, what with them three and the original guy leaning right out of the window waving his long lens at it, there was zero chance of it coming closer a situation exacerbated by a guy at the back of the hide eating his pack lunch, his eating was fine, but he seemed to have it in the most rustley bag in the world, a rustle so loud it was probably spooking birds in Norfolk!!!😏😢
Under the circumstances I think I done well to get the pics I managed!! And also to remain polite through out!!! This is why I don't like bird hides and people to if I'm honest😏😂
Not to bad considering and quite a cutie when you see it close up!!
I was contemplating my next move when fate stepped in, not sure why but practically every bird on the marsh and the lake behind erupted into the air!!! Presumably some predator, Peregrine possibly though I never saw it, anyway it was carnage with thousands of birds taking to the air, an impressive sight which predictably spooked our bird which flew off into the distance, on the plus side I did manage a couple of flight shots!
I waited for 20 minutes in the hope it would fly back, but it didn't 😢 The Brents and Avocets kept me entertained and I ambled back to the visitor center, lots of birds flying about which I tried to photograph with various levels of success! Normally on a first visit to a reserve, having seen the target species I would explore the reserve more fully, but on this occasion I was too knackered so headed back towards the center ignoring the many hides on offer, it looks a cracking reserve!!
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| Brent Geese |
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| Avocet |
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| Another distant shower, amazing today everywhere I've been there have been showers in view all the time, yet I never got rained on once!! |
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| Mute Swan |
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| More Geese |
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| Distant Ruff |
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| Curlew |
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| Moorhen |
I reached the visitor center, the area opposite the car park was a nice wet, open expanse with good numbers of Teal and Wigeon a couple of Little Egret fishing the ditches and a lot of Lapwing doing their thing, I scanned for Garganey but no luck 😂 Amazingly looking down there was a Lapwing just over the fence, probably no more than 10 feet away, fascinating to watch it's feeding technique, patting the ground with it's feet, similar to the way Gulls do before thrusting it's bill into the ground and coming up with a tasty morsel!!
I decided to head home, a fairly uneventful journey listening to the footy, Leeds once again let a lead slip 😏 but at least we got a point!! Couple of Red Kites over the A1M near Peterborough and an encounter with a BMW driver that ended with the appropriate hand gestures being exchanged the only moments of interest😆😂😲!!
And so it was I arrived home at 6.05pm around 18hrs and 600+ miles after I set off an epic adventure indeed, the 20 minutes with the Albatross will live long in the memory and there were Puffins which is always good!!
What's that you say " more new gratuitous pics of the Albatross please" oh ok go on then!!😂😂😂😂
What a Bird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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