Good evening...
With news breaking of a summer plumaged Great Knot at Titchwell early afternoon yesterday, I just hoped it would still be there today! In July 2014, a similar individual turned up at Breydon Water in Norfolk, which I was unfortunately unable to go for. I still felt the pain of missing this bird so had to twitch the next one with turned up in Britain.
The Titchwell bird was still present all afternoon yesterday and once again showed up early morning today. I arrived at Titchwell late morning and after a frantic sprint from the car park to the beach, was staring at the Great Knot through my scope. It was such a relief to finally add this globally threatened species of wader to my list.
Great Knots, which are an endangered species due to habitat destruction, breed in north east Asia and winter in Australasia. This individual, which was mixed in with around 3000 Red Knots today, represents the fifth record for Britain.
I watched the bird for about 1 1/2 hours on the beach before it flew to the freshmarsh and gave slightly closer views to the assembled twitchers. A really stunning bird, especially in summer plumage!
Knot a bad day at all!
Happy birding! Max.
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