Bad Karma

Today after checking out what's around we decided on a trip over to the Essex coast. At Holland Haven there were reports of a Pectoral Sandpiper, which would be a new lifetime tick for us. Now I remember our only previous trip to Holland Haven was to tick another lifetime first a Baird's Sandpiper. I remember it being a fairly dire journey over getting caught up in roadworks and road closures that involved us having to undertake some time consuming detours. I then remember having only distant views of the Baird's Sandpiper and both Mrs L and I agreeing afterwards that it really wasn't worth the effort - We were hoping today would be better.

On the A120 just before Stansted Airport we drew up at some traffic lights. A white van drew up on our inside and the driver opened his door and started gesticulating at us. He was telling us that our nearside rear tyre was flat. The car seemed to be driving okay, so we drove on for another couple of miles to the first convenient layby. The tyre looked a little flat, but nothing a bit of air at the next garage wouldn't sort. Then we touched the tyre - it was hot - very hot - it had to be changed.

So there we were, the curse of Holland Haven had struck, we were going to have another bad journey! We jacked the car up, took the tyre off, screwed in the little plastic thingy that guides the tyre back on, then the curse strikes again. The little plastic thingy shears off, leaving its end well and truly stuck inside the thread for the wheel nut. Hey ho! After some awkward manoeuvring we managed to get the spare tyre on and we hoped that four out of five wheel nuts would suffice.

Fortunately they did and we arrived at Holland Haven without further mishap. We then arrived at the hide, an old metal container that it's exceedingly difficult to enter or move around in without making a noise. As we carefully opened the door we were warned by those inside to keep quiet, the Pectoral Sandpiper was in the bay closest to the hide. So we got our lifetime tick and you can check out RCB's blip of the Pectoral Sandpiper.

We then settled down for what was to prove an excellent bird watching session, Pectoral Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank, Ruff and Snipe being the main highlights. It seemed the curse of Holland Haven wasn't that bad after all.

So am I being a bit mean titling this blip Bad Karma? Well, I'll let you judge. I went back to find the blip of our first Holland Haven visit, so's I could link to it and reading through it I had to exclaim NO! Mrs L had thought I'd come across some really bad news but all it was is I'd forgotten how that day ended........

.......Our first Holland Haven visit.