Buckenham & Strumpshaw: surprisingly good birds, embarrassingly bad photos!

Today being the first chance for a walk around the patch since my road trip with Brian, I dodged the morning's showers and headed down to the river at Buckenham. Just before the car park I noticed five raptors wheeling over the road: I stopped and grabbed the camera in time to snatch some very poor images of three Red Kites: the other two birds were Buzzards! All were being harassed by corvids and moved off west.

On the track down to the Yare, I paused to scan each dyke: the nearest one to the hide held a female Garganey and five ducklings: they were too far away to photograph, sadly. Just slightly nearer (and not skulking in the reeds!) were 60+ Black-tailed Godwits and a few Ruff, while another Kite, a Marsh Harrier and another Buzzard followed the previous group along the valley.

Insects included hundreds of Common Darters, Azure and Variable Damselflies and a few Ringlets and Wall Browns.

Strumpshaw added little to the list apart from a large Stickleback in the dipping pond!