A walk round East Runton this morning produced the first Common Whitethroat for the year with a nice male singing in the traditional area that I always find my first one, plus the first Speckled Wood of the spring was seen sunning itself at the other end of the village.
With the news that the Iberian Chiffchaff was still present, I decided to pop back over to Titchwell and after spending a good amount of time listening to its song & sub-song etc, I was left in no doubt that this was indeed the bird heard briefly singing on Tuesday. It was good to hear it calling too and also listening to its bouts of pure chiff-chaffing which it started to do late on in the afternoon. It was also seen to undertake some sort of courtship display when it would shiver its outstretched wings and fan its tail whilst calling.
With it virtually constantly on the move and always having a branch or two in the way, digiscoping it was proving to be a really difficult exercise but it did stay still long enough on one occasion to grab the couple of shots reproduced below.
On the freshmarsh the pair of Garganey were showing well, although spending virtually all of their time asleep. The female did wake up briefly to allow her pic to be taken but the male unfortunately wasn't quite as obliging.
The first Damselfly of the year was also seen on the meadow trail with a Large Red seen briefly flying up into one of the willows, and other bird highlights included Cetti's, Sedge and Reed Warblers, a pair of Red-crested Pochards and a couple of Little Ringed Plovers.
