After a rough night on the beer, I finally got to bed at 02.45, only to be woken a few short hours later by Philip. A Desert Wheatear had been found at Heacham near Hunstanton and this was a lifer for both of us, so we had better get a wriggle on, despite our hangovers!
Using old bits of cardboard box and marker pens, we made some hitchhiking signs, then left Fifers Lane and walked down to the Norwich Outer Ring Road from where we hoped to cadge a lift. Two birding mates, John Pilgrim and Fuzz (not sure of his real name), were also twitching the Wheatear but had decided to catch the bus to the A47 junction to save themselves the long walk. We decided to save our money and stick to our plan. Walking along the ring road to the junction was depressing, especially when John and Fuzz went past on the nice warm bus. Damn! They would have a headstart on us.
We decided to hitch from where we were until the next bus came along in an hour. Sadly, no ride appeared, and we forlornly got on the next bus, an hour behind our mates, who we realised may already be enjoying a ride to Kings Lynn. A little while later, we arrived at the A47 junction and were surprised to find John and Fuzz standing shivering at the big roundabout; they hadn't managed to hitch yet! We went and stood a few hundred yards further up the road towards Kings Lynn. Our plan was to hitchhike to Kings Lynn, then hitch from there north up the coast road to Hunstanton and then either walk or hitch the extra few miles to Heacham. I was beginning to get a little anxious that if we didn't get a ride soon, we may end up missing the bird and having to try and hitch back to Norwich in the dark, which is never much fun. After an hour without a ride, we decided to go and see John and Fuzz to see how they were getting on, and suggest giving up and going back to Fifers Lane. However, our hearts sank when we realised they were not there. That could mean only one thing: they had got a ride. Damn! This did however spur us on to get to Heacham whatever the cost. After another 20 minutes a car suddenly pulled up and Robin Chittenden, a well-known Norfolk birder, wound his window down and asked us if we were going for the Desert Wheatear. We said we were hoping to, but hadn't got very far. He told us to jump in as he was going there too! Brilliant, this would save us the hassle of having to hitch again from Kings Lynn.
An hour or so later we arrived at the coast. Piling out of the car we only walked a few metres before we spotted the pale vagrant perched on the sea wall. The Desert Wheatear hopped down on to the beach at the foot of the wall and began feeding on the beach, presumably on sandhoppers. The bird, a first-winter female, was exeptionally tame, coming to within a couple of metres of us to grab a mealworm or two, which the photographers had put out. It was rather featureless pale sandy brown with a jet black tail and small amount of white on the rump. Nevertheless, this was a cracking little bird and we high-fived in celebration, especially after our tricky journey. It all had worked out rather well!
We studied the bird in detail for about an hour and a half, interspersed by looking out on to the Wash mudflats, where ten species of wader werre noted, including tens of thousands of Knot. Robin told us he wasn't going back to Norwich, so he fixed us up with one of the photographers, Rob Wilson, to drive us back, which was very kind.
Rob took us to Horsford as he wanted to get some shots of the Hoopoe we'd seen previously. The bird, though not seen as close as on Wednesday, showed well as it flicked between various paddocks and gardens in its typical butterfly like fashion. Today, the Hoopoe seemed not as skanky as during the week, possibly because its feathers had dried out. Leaving Rob to it, we hitchhiked back to Norwich with some other birders who were leaving Horsford. On arrival back at Fifers Lane we bumped into John and Fuzz. He said they had failed to get a lift and had given up and gone to the pub for the day. They were mightily gripped off by our tale!
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