Having delivered Mia to the cattery last night we made a good start to our lengthy journey down to Hickling in the Norfolk Broads. We stopped off for coffee and cake at The Rodney in Horncastle, otherwise our journey was uninterrupted. Arriving early we drove down to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve visitor to ascertain the lie of the land. Having orientated ourselves we headed back to our air b'n'b, an old, picturesque redbrick cottage in Hickling Green where we met up with Malcolm and Maureen. Having fortified ourselves with te and cake we drove back down to reserve and walked out to the raptor viewpoint at Stubbs Mill where we joined the other hopefuls. It wasn't long before before our patience was rewarded and we saw our first marsh harriers coming into roost. And then there they were 3 common canes flying in from behind our left giving very close views. I was surprised at how large they were; I was thrilled. We gradually saw more and more marsh harriers appearing, mostly darker females but at least one pale male bird. More and more cranes appeared and settled down to roost in the reeds. Mostly these were fairly distant views but altogether 30 cranes came in and at least 9 marsh harriers. It quickly became too cold and dark to remain and we headed back to the cottage for supper of chilli and rice and, of course, it was beer o'clock.
To view large please click on an image. The weather was too poor and at 5.00 - 5.45 the light too poor for photography so the accompanying marsh harrier images are old ones taken from the public hide at Far Ings reserve in North Lincs. Photographs of the magnificent cranes are a work in progress; I need to find them in proper daylight.
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