3rd May 2016
On Tuesday evening I'd got home from work and seen a message from Drew about a nasal-saddled Tufted Duck at Whitlingham. This was doubly interesting, firstly in that hopefully we can find out where it was ringed (somewhere in France) but also it shows that there is a turnover of birds going on rather than the same Tufted Ducks that wintered lingering.
Shortly afterwards I got another message, this time to say that Drew had found a Whimbrel. They are just about annual at Whitlingham, but most records are just of birds flying over. This one had landed out of sight across the river at Thorpe. Going to Thorpe Marsh would give me the best chance of locating it, but the rush hour traffic would delay me getting there. Instead I headed to Whitlingham, carried on to the woodland car park and headed up to the viewpoint. From here you can see much of Thorpe Broad, however bits are masked by the trees. Fortunately I managed to find an angle to look through the trees and located the Whimbrel resting on the shingle edge of the broad. It remained there for about another 10 minutes, before calling repeatedly and presumably flying off. This became my 143rd patch bird - many thanks to Drew for finding it and letting me know.
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