counting coots

I think that I may have been in the wrong patch this morning.  I got uncommon birds and a patch tick par excellence.

The tides have been high at lunchtime this week, so the only good birding is in the morning.  Obviously, this being this particular patch, good birding means that the birds that are not there at lunchtime are there in the morning.  Which is fine.  It's a patch, and that's what it is all about.  Or is it?

I got to the river this morning, spied a couple of Grebes close in and some gulls.  So far, so really very normal indeed.  Then a Common Sandpiper flew past calling, and it was close in.  That'll do me.  Waders on this patch are very hard to come by so I was more than happy to try and follow this shivery winged rarity for half an hour or so.  Except that as I turned in one direction, I heard a familiar call behind me.  If I was at Cley, I wouldn't think twice about it.  Well maybe to check if something rarer was with it, maybe with spots.  But in the context of the patch I knew this was special.  I was stopped in my tracks and the adrenalin started to flow.  It called again - tyu-yu-yu - "holy shit I've got a Redshank".  There have been reports of one in the same borough, but just up river so I was hoping against all hope that one might come past, but as I spun round and eyeballed the foreshore there were five.  FIVE!  "Holy shit - there's five Redshanks".  Five lovely little patch ticks all in a row.  I was staggered.  And still am.  Of course, they flew off.  Record shots below.