Birding 1 - 8 Motorway. A Tale of a Filthy Twitching Massacre !

I don't normally twitch 400 miles ! The prospect of looking at a motorway for 16 hours (there and back) compared to 40 mins birding doesn't sit very well with me. It also costs a lot (even when you're sharing costs) and then there's the depreciation on the car to say nothing of the environmental impact.

However, I haven't had a new bird this year and when somebody else offers to drive and take their car I cave in and go. So I abandon my job, my wife, my kids and head off into the night and arrive in London at 5:30 in the morning. It is dark, Rainham Marshes is shut. I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm hungry. 'Fortunately' we find a greasy spoon and I devour a sub standard breakfast, drink the worst cup of coffee I've ever tasted and have my ears accosted by some burly builders.

By 7:30 the gates at Rainham Marshes have miraculously opened and we gain entry to the reserve. I'm pretty confident about seeing the bird, although I'm prepared for a wait. In reality locating "Butts hide" actually takes far longer than waiting to see the bird because from the minute we arrived 'The Crake' is in view almost constantly. Never coming close enough for the DSLR, and it was a bit into the sun, but anyway here goes:

Baillion's Crake

So by 9am it's time to go home ! Another 8 hours in front of us. No make that 11 because we detour to Hoylake on the Wirral in the hope of connecting with a Western Sand. No sign of the Western Sand although I manage to pick out 2 juvenile Curlew Sands amongst the many Dunlin & Sanderling.

So another wee tick goes into the book. I think that's 406 now. Will I twitch that distance in a day again ? Definitely not....................... well at least not until the next time.