With the news that a Black-necked Grebe had been seen off West Runton and was drifting east, I quickly made my way to East Runton to see if I could relocate it, but upon arrival discovered that there were a number of wind-surfers on the sea there, so my hopes were not high thinking it would probably have quickly moved off from the area.
A number of Sandwich Terns and a few Gannets were seen passing but after an hour or so of scanning the sea with no luck, I decided to check the sea further along towards Cromer as I guessed it had probably long gone past where I was.
To my delight, just as I arrived in Cromer, news came through that it was indeed off there, and after having found somewhere to park, I was watching it close inshore just to the west of the pier. This constituted my first ever Black-necked Grebe for the patch so I naturally delighted to have caught up with it, and the fact that it was a stunning full summer plumaged bird was a great bonus too. Black-necked Grebes are scarce birds in the county and 'at sea' records are even rarer, so this was a great record for the area.
Fortunately I got to meet the original finder of the bird so was able to pass on my thanks to him for his discovery, and managed to get a record shot of it.
