Little gulls...

I wandered around Titchwell, another RSPB reserve, with the hedgerows heavy with blossom and the sky full of swifts. A big, ruddy-faced man was trying to photograph swifts in flight. “Good luck with that!”, I said. He was rhapsodising about their flying abilities. Having just arrived back from sub-Saharan Africa, they might deserve - or require - a few day’s rest. But no. While a lot of the ducks, godwits, gulls and avocets seemed to be asleep (some balanced on one leg) the swifts were tearing around the sky. Inactivity isn’t in their nature; they can even sleep on the wing.

I found a long-tailed tit’s nest, ten feet up in a tree, where three branches met; it was about the same shape and size as a child’s rugby ball and looked to be made entirely of moss and feathers. In the marshes were ducks and geese, with their ducklings and goslings. A marsh harrier was ‘quartering’ over open water, rather than the reedbeds, trying to catch one. The best sightings were a whimbrel: like a curlew, but smaller and much less common. And I spotted half a dozen little gulls among the hundreds of black headed gulls. They are small, dainty and, in flight, look more like terns.

How did they know I was coming?