Little CrakeI expected falling off the boardwalk and into the water to be an inevitable part of the Arundel trip today, but this thankfully wasn't the case. By the time I arrived with Colin & Paul Manville, late morning, there were hardly hordes of people pushing and shoving and I had LITTLE CRAKE on my list within ten minutes, seeing it clearly - although reasonably briefly - about four times. A nice bird. I also bumped into a few familiar faces including Pete & Jamie, whom I met and spent a lot of time with on Scilly last year; and Michael & Dan, with whom I have gone on a couple of twitches.
I had already done an early morning stint at Canons before the twitch, getting little other than a couple of Wheatears. Paul and I returned and met up with Paul Cox, Ian Magness, Roy and a couple of others for a skywatch. The odd Swallow flew through and there were a few Common Buzzards about. I picked out two raptors over one of the barns, calling them as Buzzards. I scoped them just in case and saw that one of them was in fact a Red Kite! It proceeded to drift south east. A very long awaited patch year tick and a great relief, finishing off a worthwhile and pleasant day.
Britain Life List: 302 (weird how it always seems to be 200 above my CFBW list at the moment)
