Cranes, Bittern, and Sandpiper

I decided to go to Titchwell as I wanted to see the Cattle Egret that had been about, I was going to go on the Sunday but the breezey forecast made me go on the Saturday afternoon.

I collected Philip and driving down the main road 6 large birds were visiable in the distance we pulled over and soon identified them as Common Crane. We then turned around and raced back as they were heading straight for his house.

No sooner had we stopped in the drive they flew low over his garden giving him an unusual garden tick.

When then collected my dad and headed for Titchwell. We finally arrived after a mass of traffic and were straight onto the Little Bittern. I know we were lucky to see it straight away but the views were not great as the image below shows.

The bird was actually in the back of the bushes on the left here we watched it creep slowly into the reeds for about 30mins before disappearing until late evening.

We then headed up the track to the Parrinder Hide where the Buff-breasted Sandpiper hadn't been seen. I took a quick scan seeing Spotted Redshank and Greenshank then after a minute or two I found the Buff-breasted Sandpiper at the back of the marsh.

The Buff-breasted Sandpiper also had a few Wagtails in its proximity including 4/5 Yellow and a White Wagtail.

We scanned the freshmarsh afterwards, seeing 7 Curlew Sandpiper amongst the many Dunlin.

After this we popped to Cley and missed the Dotterel as the had flown past us as we walked down. But we did have on interesting bird here as a Budgerigar flew in off the sea but then failed to stay over the land as the wind got hold of it and took it straight back out, we watched as it struggled to get to land and as it got closer the wind would take in away again, eventually it disappeared on the sea.