BLOG

5 Sep 2020 White sugar

On Thursday, Norwich friend Rich Moores endured the driving rain to check the lagoons at Cantley Beet Factory, a site to which owners/manages British Sugar kindly allow birding access (and there are also public footpaths running through the site). For his reward, Rich found a juvenile White-winged Black Tern. A short while later, other Norwich friends Jack Morris and Max Hellicar turned up at the same place with the same intent. Had they done so earlier, it would have been them that found the dinky surface-dipper. Close, but no cigar. You gotta be in it before others, to win it. I've had a dicey week, health wise, so it took until this morning for me to mooch along. Rather embarrassingly, it was my first visit here. Only today did I understand why Rich, Jack and Max all thought it worth a soaking to check the place. It really is rather splendid. A nice selection of waders, oodles of wagtails and hirundines, three juicy September Swifts and, of course, the lovely little marsh tern porning it at fairly close range if in slightly harsh light. I shall be back... but will I get there before or after others?