After a heavy drinking session to celebrate my birthday with my mates, we headed over once again to Norfolk, to try and bird our hangovers away. This time, we headed down the Yare Valley to the attractive surroundings of a large sugar beet factory at Cantley. Ths rather foul place is well-known as a wader hotspot having hosted numerous rare waders, attracted to the insect life on the settling tanks.
Once we had navigated to the correct tank, we quickly picked up the attenuated shape of the Baird's Sandpiper we had come to see. Picking about on the edge of the scrape with a handful of Ruff, Dunlin and Ringed Plovers, through the scope the Baird's' distinctive face pattern with the dark loral blob, strong supercilium and dark cap could be seen. Neatly, buff-fringed scapulars and tertials aged this bird as a juvenile as would be expected at this time of year.
On the way back, Dunc suddenly shouted 'raptor!', and I looked up to see a beautiful rufous-morph juvenile Honey Buzzard sailing low overhead. Absolutely corking! We watched the strikingly marked bird with characteristic bowed wings, long tail and small projecting head glide off over the Yare valley. We put the news out on RBA using my mobile phone to alert birders watching the Baird's, but by the time the message came through on Dunc's pager, it was long gone, as was my hangover!
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