Happy Little Whimbrel Day!

As has been previously noted on this blog, I've never been much of a twitcher. Consequently, I don't have many real blockers on my list. By far the longest-standing one (and the only one I have from the 80s) is the Norfolk Little Whimbrel, and it was 23 years ago today that I saw it. Not a particularly noteworthy anniversary (like 25 years would be, or 50), but I can't think of anything else to write about at the moment.

As I remember, Jeff Higgott and I heard about it the day before from someone at Swithland Reservoir, who in turn had heard something about it on the radio, but couldn't remember whether they'd said Little Whimbrel or Eskimo Curlew! The former seemed more likely, and this was confirmed when Jeff rang Nancy's Cafe from the phone box in Swithland village. The birder who answered the phone at Nancy's said something like, "I think it's still here, but I've no idea where it is now, and we're all too pissed to care!"

Although this was a bit vague, we decided to go anyway and early the following morning we arrived at Cley, not having any idea exactly where the bird was. This was a common occurrence in the days before instant bird news, and you just had to use a bit of initiative. The obvious place to start was the Coastguards car park, where there would at least be some birders around to ask. There were, but not surprisingly at 4 o'clock in the morning they were all asleep in the 'beach hotel'. Unfortunately the one I chose to wake up turned out to be Belgian, but using a combination of broken English and sign language (my Flemish not being too good) we gathered that it had last been seen at Salthouse, so that was where we went.

Luckily the bird was still there, in the fields near the duck pond, although I can't say I can really remember it as such. My notebook tells me that we watched it for about an hour, but my mental image is of Dave Cottridge's photo, a copy of which I still have in an old album somewhere.

Two in three years in the 80s, and none since. Will there ever be another one?