Egrets, Spoonbills and three year ticks at Cley

Just Norman and me today: he's unable to drive for a week or two, so I picked him up and headed north before the traffic built up. We started in Bishop's Hide, where almost the first birds we saw were a couple of close Green Sandpipers: further away was a gathering of twenty or so Cattle Egrets with half a dozen Spoonbills. Both groups were made up of adults and juvenile birds: amusing to watch the 'teaspoons' harrassing their mothers for food. Too far away in the ferocious heat haze for good photography was, I think, a Curlew Sandpiper.

A move to the centre hides was rewarded by another Green Sandpiper and - distantly - two Little Stints and a Common Sandpiper. The Egrets were being regularly flushed by a Marsh Harrier, and sheltered among the cattle: it felt like being back on the Somme Estuary!

After tea and a scone, we took a walk along the East Bank, where the only new bird - for the year as well as the day - was a distant Arctic Skua chasing terns offshore.

An interesting bird was a juvenile Little Ringed Plover, which had apparently been reported as a Kentish Plover...