There had been a black-winged kite spotted in Norfolk and Suffolk through the week, showing until late breakfast time and coming to roost from teatime onwards. We were very keen to catch up with this bird, as were most birders. In fact it was so popular the sightings and movement of birders had made it onto many of the news channels - my boss even asked me about it.
Friday arrived, and the bird vanished for most of the day only to be spotted and reported in Essex late in the evening, but with no idea of where the roost site was likely to be – in fact to begin with, the finder was reluctant to say where they were. Kev and I decided to make for Smithy Fen where the white stork that had eluded me all year had been reported that same evening. We would be an hour closer to the last reported sighting and could launch a visit from there if relocated.
We arrived at Smithy Fen early, parked the car in the same spot as so many times this year, and started to stroll along the footpath. The stork was not roosting on any of the poles advertised and what we could see of the pool (much of the water now gone) held gulls and a few mute swans. But wait, that swan turned and stood upright and even from a distance it looked wrong - a quick look through the bins confirmed it was the white stork - boom! At long last I had my life tick. We moved down the path to close distance and improve the angle so I could take a couple of photos - a couple is all I got before Kev shouted that we had to go ... the black-winged kite had been reported at St. Osyth in Essex, in the same spot it had been reported the night before.
We hurried back to the car and made our way south, checking for the best parking spot on the way. Birdguides was showing that you had to park and walk along the sea wall but that was a walk each way of about 2.5 miles. We picked up some intel that took us closer. Closer still was a lane that took you close to the bird but was a private road and not to be used ... we’d find later that some ignored that detail.
We parked and made our way to the path that would take us down towards the sea wall and met a birder coming the other way - he said he'd been unable to locate the path and was going to try elsewhere - our intel was quite specific and so he followed us back and we discovered the directions were correct. We walked together, about a mile along the path until we came across two birders, one of whom was the chap who'd supplied the parking intel - we thanked him. They put us on the bird as it left and started quartering along the sea wall. Apparently, the kite had been much closer about half an hour before we arrived and landed in some nearby bushes regularly, before moving its preference to the tall tree we'd seen it in. We waited in the hope it would return, but no dice.
There were numbers of people with better views on the lane and several cars that had ignored the sign to not to bring their car down. The bird had gone far along the sea wall and so we made our way along the track and onto the lane to see the bird drip into a very distant hedge. So distant, but I took some photos which were simply a grey spot in a hedge - delete.
A farmer passed in a tractor and had a word with some of the birders and could be heard saying that they were not meant to be there and that he had a wide vehicle that would be coming this way and may be challenged to get past without damaging their vehicles …
The bird made a few flights before returning each time to the same hedge but never any closer. In the scope you could see the bird clearly but photos through were still distant and in the end not any better than cropped from my camera. Eventually the bird took to the wing again, this time working along and back on the sea wall, and then quartered along the hedge line before rising and flying off and away. By 9.45am it was gone and not to be reported again in the days to come.
Two life ticks in a day! and it was only 10.00am. We pressed on to see if we could add the Bonaparte’s gull at Ouse Washes (we were not a million miles away). We bumped into a couple who we'd seen at a couple of recent twitches, and he said we'd just missed the bird by about two minutes. We scanned and walked - eventually the rain started to fall, and we returned to the slip where he pointed out a bird which we decided was not it.
I had a couple of terns which looked odd and I took a couple of snaps noting the back bills - two roseate terns were reported within the hour just down the coast. I checked the ID with people who know better, and they were confirmed to be common terns - c'est la vie. We checked the pools containing roosting gulls and black-tailed godwits but to no avail. The rain and time had beaten us and a third tick on the day was not to be had.
We fought the traffic back home - issues on the M25, when is there not. We phoned our wives to pass on the news we'd be later than advertised and I'm sure rolled their eyes. We'd ended up further than we'd planned, and the traffic had put paid to a quick return - one day we'll learn.
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