Return to the Whoopers

On Sunday 27th October, I was keen to try for some more pictures of the Whoopers at Benacre and following the extra hour in bed, I made my way there by 8am new time and walked down to the beach. The birds were there so I set up in the south- east corner hoping theyb would come to me they didn't. I looked in the hide, there was a couple in there. Against lots of wildfowl on the Broad with c300 Coot still, c400 Wigeon still, a male Shovelor and 2 male Pintail at the back. A female Marsh harrier flew at the back of the broad. There were lots of activity particularly from a party of 7 'tping' Bearded Tits flying around quite frequently but always flying into the reeds and out of sight. The high pitched call of a Kingfisher heralded the sighting of a Kingfisher perched on a stick in front of the hide scrape at the back and I managed a few pics. Looking at them the lower orangy/red mandible proved it was a female. I then walked back to the beach and slowly crawled up the fallen tree trunk using it as cover, the Swans were now on the Broad beach edge roughly two-thirds north. There were 7 Whooper Swans (3 adults and 4 immatures), the family party plus the adult bird. When people walked along the beach the Swans would slowly swim out onto the Broad and I was able to obtrain some nice shots in perfect light without disturbing them as they returned to the same position the beach edge when the walkers had gone. Later on a look around Corton was virtually birdless save for 2 parties of LT Tits and a look on Gunton Warren opposite for James W's dartford proved fruitless but I did see several examples of Orange Peel Fungus (thanks to Izzie for the ID) on the cleared area opposite Hubbards Loke.