Baillon's Crake

Having met a few people yesterday that had seen the Baillon's Crake at Rainham it sounded like the decision to avoid the weekend crowds was a good one, but the advice was that during the week wasn't too bad. So here we are at Rainham Marshes "Mega chasing".

Listening to the advice it was best to be at the right hand side of the hide, but not too far right, the third window from the right was probably the perfect position seemingly.

I arrived around 10:30, there were around twenty birders in the hide, mostly at the right hand side, but one of the two seats in front of the third window from the right was vacant - result!!

The bird had been seen fleetingly about 9:00, but not since. The guy next to me was exceedingly helpful in pointing out the areas where it was usually seen. Then around 12:45 even more helpful when he spotted it just "crossing the patch of mud". I knew exactly where he meant and found it immediately. There was a mixture of frustration and excitement among the rest of the hide depending on whether or not they found the appropriate patch of mud. At around twenty seconds, another fleeting view and no chance of getting the camera on it, but now I knew for certain the appropriate patch of mud I set up the camera on the shelf clamp mount and waited.

Relatively speaking not long to wait, 14:06 to be precise. Initially it was spotted quite a bit further left, but I failed to find it other than through someone else's scope, but it was on the move towards "the patch of mud" - click, click, click - result #2!!

So if you care to visit RCB you'll see that not only did he get a rather similar picture, but he managed to get it as his 500th Blip..

Also if you care to visit TheNo you'll see he's been blipped too!! - well at least the top of his head has been, sitting in front of the third window from the right - small world.