The ultra showy Lesser Yellowlegs at Cley

On Wednesday 4th November, I caved in and finally went for the Lesser Yellowlegs at Cley because a) reports were saying it was really showy and b) for once it would be a nice sunny day finally c) also it was the last day before lockdown, so it was today or bust. Having booked a morning's leave off work, I left at 6am in the morning and by 7.30am I was drawing into Cley NWT car park. Lesser Yellowlegs is a rare visitor to the UK from across the "pond" usually blown over by westerly gales. After receving excellent directions from John H I walked left and past the entrance to the hides but couldn't see it in the flooded fields, walking down towards the hides no sign there either so back on the footpath near the road, I saw a chap scurrying by, I followed him and saw another 5 toggers looking just over the fence at the excellent Lesser Yellowlegs, which was this side of a puddle barely 5 metres away, it was incredibly confiding even walking to within 2 metres of me, but it was constanly on the move, initally in shadow but later as the sun rose it shone on the bird as it was continally walking around feeding giving superlative views. A dog walker with 2 dogs off leads spooked it and it flew over to the next field where it was further away and it settled the far side of the puddle where it stood for a while and preened. A male Stonechat flew by and perched briefly on the fence further down. At this point I left, no chance of enetring the hides before 10am (which was very disappointing as I knew I wouldn't get a chance to look for a long overdue Norfolk tick Caspian Gulls which had been seen on the reserve recently. A walk down the east bank only revealed 3 Pintail on the far pool and no sign of the Scaup, although Wigeons were calling on the marsh the other side. No sign of any Otters either.