Garganey

“Where is it?” was the question.

“The Garganey?” I replied.

“Yes!” which was said in a slightly incredulous tone; as though he couldn’t have possibly meant anything else.

“It’s way at the back of the scrape … among those Teal” I volunteered.

“Ah! I see it. The one doing an Anne Boleyn?”

This was no doubt a reference to the ducks amazing propensity for losing its head. For the main part tucking it beneath what would be a snug warm wing. Indeed, this bird spent so much time sleeping you would be forgiven for thinking it may well have been hibernating; and who would blame it? The whistling north easterly wind here on the Norfolk marshes was a little sharp. Not the sort of weather you would expect an early spring migrant to use as a returning vehicle to its breeding grounds. The earliest date for returning Garganey in Norfolk last year was 18^th March so maybe this bird has overwintered among a seclude flock of teal somewhere in an undetected backwater. Several others splattered through the UK have over wintered this year.

A record shot of a very distant bird in a rare moment of consciousness.