Sorry for the very poor quality of the photo. This Water Rail was my Bird of the Day for Saturday. A friend and I had a nice weekend bird watching in North Norfolk (I've written an entry on my blog about it). On Saturday morning, we were walking along the path through the reserve at Titchwell Marsh when, amazingly, this bird suddenly appeared only just about 20 feet from us! It was on a small 'island' in a lagoon, and immediately swam/paddled even closer to us before disappearing into the vegetation at the bottom of the bank we were standing on. Even more amazingly, I had my camera in my hands and switched on at the time (I'd just failed miserably to get some shots of Goldeneye) so it's really disappointing that this very blurred shot was the best I managed.
My Bird of the Day for Sunday would have to be the Sacred Ibis we spotted at Holkham! OK, its a cheat as it's obviously an escaped bird (I've since seen that it's been spotted regularly at Holkham and Stiffkey for a few months now) but it just came as such a shock, seeing it will live long in the memory. My friend just said 'Oh, there's another Little Egret up' (we'd seen 60 come in to roost there the day before) - I couldn't believe it when it turned in the air and I could see its black head/neck and curved bill!