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A bit of a rarity.


JDog
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Sitting up glassing for pigeons on fresh drillings (there were none) I saw an unusual bird circling overhead. I had a good view and even took a poor picture on my phone before memorising what I had seen and rushing back home to get a proper identity. This bird was not in my bird book which I had with me. My neighbour who was jogging miles from home was standing with me when I saw it for the second time.

There is no doubt that it was a White Stork (Ciconia ciconia). The 'beast from the east' must have blown it off course.

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There are quite a few Storks in the UK - especially in E Anglia.

We had some at Sharnbrook (just north of Bedford) and there is also some supposed to be near Oxford.

Very strange flying style with neck and legs extended. Look like a forerunner of Concorde!

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I have seen Storks on several occasions , the one you saw could have been a escapee from the wildfowl collections , one near us the Storks are free wing and nest on the chimney stacks next to Filby Broad .

One we had on the estuary last year the local bird watcher could read the number on the leg ring with his powerful telescope and yes , it was from a collection .

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10 minutes ago, Mice! said:

Don't you love it when you spot something you have no idea what it is so you have to find out.

I am not a 'Twitcher' by any means but there would be very few birds in the UK that I couldn't identify, even the 'little brown jobs'. This was a new one on me and I was a tad excited at seeing it. My neighbour has a passing interest in birds too and she is beside herself at spotting this bird once I pointed it out to her.

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13 minutes ago, JDog said:

I am not a 'Twitcher' by any means but there would be very few birds in the UK that I couldn't identify, even the 'little brown jobs'. This was a new one on me and I was a tad excited at seeing it. My neighbour has a passing interest in birds too and she is beside herself at spotting this bird once I pointed it out to her.

Looking in my bird book there is also a Black Stork and in the late 1800s it was a very unhealthy place for both White and Black Storks to come and visit our estuary , here is an insert referring the Black Stork

Black Stork: A rare vagrant from eastern and southern Europe ,An adult female was shot on Breydon mudflats on June 27th 1877 by John " Pintail " Thomas , constituting only the second Norfolk sighting . This fine specimen is now at Norwich  Castle  Museum . Just over one hundred years later another Black Stork was seen on July 31st 1979 heading south over Breydon Water during the late afternoon.

Most , if not all the White storks suffered the same fate ,

Two were shot in the summer of 1817 on the Burgh Castle marshes and another was seen to fly in off the sea on May 10th 1842 , only to be shot the next day , six miles away on the  Halvergate marshes .

Moving forward to safer times for the Storks , there was a small invasion of at least 18 White Storks in April 1967 , these stayed for most of the summer , often seen during courtship displayed on the sails at the drainage mill , as summer declined, two birds remained to December until one suffered a fatal accident with a overhead power cable .

Still it made a change from getting shot:no:, since then there have been sighting most years and like I said in the earlier post , some are now free to fly and nesting on the chimney stacks. 

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2 hours ago, TIDES EDGE said:

Odd things do turn up I saw a Hoopoe on Sunday.

 

Always wanted to see one from being a young lad with my 'Observers book of British birds' (still have it) 50 odd years ago.

Had to wait till a couple of years ago and saw a two in Lanzarote outside our hotel whilst on holiday.

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2 hours ago, Good shot? said:

Always wanted to see one from being a young lad with my 'Observers book of British birds' (still have it) 50 odd years ago.

Had to wait till a couple of years ago and saw a two in Lanzarote outside our hotel whilst on holiday.

there on cbebies every night, 655 ? 

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16 hours ago, JDog said:

No definitely not an Egret even one of the larger ones. I have a clear picture in my mind of the bird and it was a White Stork.

One bird which you are unlikely to see on your travels is a American Bitten , there is one at the moment on the Carlton Marshes  just over the border on the Suffolk Wildlife Trust land . just about every bird watcher up and down the country was there yesterday to look at this rarity .

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I have yet to see a Waxwing, Dartford Warbler or Hawfinch. Apparently this winter has been the best ever for the latter with 110 arriving from the Continent in one flock over part of the coast which I regularly frequent. I must have been either looking the other way or for pigeons.

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