Magic at Cantley!

On Saturday 5th September, I was finally able to visit Cantley Sugar Beet Factory, after waiting a couple of days (due to lack of daylight time after work) to twitch the White- winged Black Tern. I called in at Reception and was given a pass and told I could drive right down to the car park at the end, which I am extremely grateful for as it is a very long walk carrying all the camera equipment plus my usual optical gear of bins, scope and tripod. Equally nice was bumping into Paul & Jane F who always seem to bump into as I arrive on site and they have already been and enjoyed the birds! Paul F gave very good directions to take the second turning on the left following the large pipe around and follow the flood pools in a clockwise direction until you see the people. I could see them and I immediately could see the fine White- winged Black Tern flying around a very elastic flight bouncing up and down in flight as if suspended by a rubber band. It showed the diagnostic rusty saddle and back spur on the head and scaled wings. It spent a round ten minutes flying around often at reasonably close quarters (it would have been advantageous to take an additional camera and my 100-400X lens but I had left it as I thought I would have to walk from outside the Factory premises. As it turned out I needn't have worried as I managed to get a reasonable shot with the 500mm lens and 1.4X converter (much, much harder to focus on flying birds but if you do, you can get reasonable results). Going to the corner I was amazed to see some wonderful waders at point blank range, including a wonderfully confiding immature Curlew Sandpiper but always on the move feeding, 2 showy Ruff, one paler bird (also a darker buff bird) walked past several times, a slightly more bashful Wood Sandpiper that frequented the right hand side and 2 Dunlin, one in partial summer plumage and 1 in winter plumage. Later on a Greenshank flew over to just left of a sandy spit in the mid distance. Common sandpiper heard too but not seen. The White- winged Black tern would disappear for between 10- 20 minutes where it flew over to a field east of the Cantley pools and rest with the Gulls but I didn't see it at rest. When it flew back it would have a sweeping bouncy flight over the pools often flying reasonably close. When I walked back around 30 immature Swallows rested on some rusty but dead Alexander plants obscured the view so no pics of them.