I'd arranged to meet birding chum Brian at 7.00 am for a socially-distanced walk around this delightful reserve. As before, he was on a very tight time budget, which was a shame, because he missed almost everything!
All the expected good birds were present, albeit often somewhat distantly, but nevertheless it was great to catch up with Hobby, Mediterranean Gull (3) Bearded Tit, Bittern (2) and Spoonbill. As is often the case, the Cranes were the stars of the show, with groups of 10, 5, 3, as well as two pairs in some form of display flight.
Interesting to pick out the Hooded Crow hybrid: whatever its parentage, it's a very attractive and welcome addition to any day list at Hickling - it's been around 2 or 3 years at least. The Red-footed Falcon was very distantly visible from the new Cadbury scrape: luckily 'Twitter follower' David Ratcliffe was there with a socially-distanced 'scope'. Even though it was still just a hazy speck, having spoken to someone who'd watched it fly across earlier, I was happy to go with the i/d!
Lots of odonatids and some nice butterflies too, including half a dozen Swallowtails: I'll post pictures of all those later.
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