What a cracker!

On Sunday 25th October, an early start was in order as Rob H. had kindly offered to give me a lift up to Mundesley in North Norfolk for the Nutcracker. The Nutcracker is a denizen of Coniferous Pine forests and occasional irruptions occur due to a severe lack of food or because of population explosions. The last major one which led to multiple arrivals in the UK was way back in 1968! Typically they feed on Pine seeds and Hazels. The distribution of this intelligent member of the crow family is spread across the globe from in the west Scandinavia (where they are represented by the thick- billed race, across Europe, Siberia and even Japan. The irruptive ones are the Siberian slender billed ones, native to the Taiga forests of Siberia. Rob arrived at the house at 6am (GMT) following the hour change. As we were passing Ormesby St. Margaret, rather bizarrely, we saw a very young fawn Muntjac deer with spots on its back (meaning it was up to 2 months old) running around the middle of the road in circles. Rob stopped the car on hazard lights and ran out to rescue it but its strength meant it leapt out of his arms and continued to run in circles in the middle of the road. I popped out and managed with difficulty to herd it to the side of the road, Rob aided me and we finally managed to see it go onto the verge. This ultimately succeeded as we didn't see it as a road casualty when we drove back. We arrived at Mundesley just as the sun was starting to rise and the cars were all again parked along Trunch Road with the birders gathered by the garden we drove onto a side road and parked down there and walked the half mile back but Rob was jogging along and as we reached the garden nobody was there, Rob was disappearing into the distance, I had no signal on my phone to find out any updated BirdGuides message but obviously the bird had relocated elsewhere, by the school I bumped into another birder who said as he just drove in he saw all the birders running down another lane, Water Lane (Rob had kindly texted me this too) so I quickly walked down the lane and in a small wooded copse area, a group of birders were all looking in the same spot, half way up a horse chestnut tree perched the excellent Northern Slender- billed Nutcracker! As soon as I saw it, it instantly flew right. It flew into a meadow area and around 300 birders were here, it flew up into a tree and excellent views were obtained of the Nutcracker was seen here. Crow sized with chocolate brown plumage, with a longer dark bill. It sported a dark cap, with gorgeous chocolate brown plumage spangled with white pear drop sized spots all over its plumage. The lores between the eye and the base of the bill were white. It had a white vent with white undertail coverts and striking white rear crescents on the base of the long tail with black wings, a very striking bird! perched half way up, it then flew into a Pine and perched here too, before flying onto the ground and catching and devouring a wasp! It then flew to the trees by Water Lane and I had the bird barely 4 feet away but photos were too dark sadly, as I had adjusted the exposure too late, sadly. It then flew back to the trees by the meadow, catching the odd Wasp and feeding from the Pine cones. It then flew down to the ground and was feeding on another wasp on the ground. Before it then flew up to a house and perched on the wall, the fence, the roof top and side gable. It caught wasps from here too. Later on it flew back to the trees by the side of the meadow. To paraphrase the late great comedian Frank Carson, "it's a cracker!" and rarity of the year.