Hobbies...

I had another session on Cley marshes. One hide was crowded with birders (not always a pretty sight) training their telescopes and long lenses on a tiny and inconspicuous wader: a Temminck’s stint. That’s a first sighting for me (though I doubt if I would have been able to recognise it if I'd been on my own). Most exciting was seeing two male ruffs, in full breeding plumage, displaying in front of a female, who seemed singularly unimpressed by their bowing and scraping.

Yesterday afternoon, to avoid royal wedding craziness, I joined other anti-monarchists at Lakenheath Fen. It was my third visit. There aren’t big numbers of birds, as at Cley or Minsmere or other coastal wetlands, but I always see something interesting there. A month ago it was a bittern and (another first for me) two common cranes; on this occasion it was the hobbies. The reserve is full of dragonflies, which is what hobbies like to eat: catching them, acrobatically, in flight. I sat overlooking the lake and reedbeds, at the far end of the reserve, hypnotised by the sight of about fifty of these beautiful birds of prey. The sky was full of them. That’s the end of my springtime bird watching in East Anglia; what a memorable way to finish.

Birders going fully-armed at Cley, in search of a temminck's stint...

Hobby in flight (photo: Creative Commons)...