I was on duty at Blacktoft and as usual arrived early to have a look round before the visitors arrived.
Tuesday was a nice sunny morning and I knew that the team would be working on Ousefleet hide so I went to Marshland first, just in case any disturbance frightened the birds. Also birds are quite close to the hide, so if you open the door and windows quietly you can often see the birds at close range.
There were several birds close to the hide, so my luck was in.
Lapwing, ruff, black tailed godwit, green sandpiper and snipe were close to the hide. A bit further away was this grey heron.
When I looked closer I could see that it had caught a young moorhen. The heron walked around a bit with the young bird in its beak and then kept dipping the bird under the water, presumably trying to drown it, but the bird looked dead to me.
The heron had several attempts at swallowing the bird before discarding it and flying off.
On the mud on the right hand side of the lagoon several bearded tits were feeding on insects.
They were a fair distance away, hence my thoughts turned to digiscoping again.
Also at the other end of the lagoon were 2 curlew sandpipers, so these are my digiscoping attempts.
I need to look at the camera settings on my phone, plus adjust the focus on the telescope.
There was a steady stream of visitors to the reserve, a lot of whom had come to see the curlew sanspipers and the female Montagu's harrier. They all went away happy having seen the birds, plus many had seen water rail, bearded tits and the 12 different waders that were on the reserve.
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