A Record At Cley!!!!

An UNBELIEVABLY productive week's holiday at Cley produced the following brace of five EPIC Lifers!!!!

For any beginners unsure with the term 'lifer', this simply means that it is the first time someone has seen a particular species of bird. As you know, I left for Cley on 199 Lifers, and it's been a long-standing agreement between birds and myself that when I got my 200th Lifer, I would be celebrating by having a large pizza and a glass of red wine.

Well.... when I saw a certain bird at Cley.... I qualified for it!!!! And afterwards, all Hell and pandemonium broke loose on the Lifer front. It was a week's birdwatching that has you pinching yourself to see if it's actually happening. If you incorporate the Black Tern and Red-necked Phalarope I'd seen at Frampton beforehand, it was 7 Lifers in 7 days; a turnover I hadn't experienced since 2007, still then in the infancy of my hobby.

Lifer 1 - by shingle bank, a group of 5 late-staying SHORE LARK.
Lifer 2 - Five minutes after seeing the Shore Lark, 3 TEMMINCK'S STINTS.
Lifer 3 - 2 days later, I got reasonable views of a female CITRINE WAGTAIL.
Lifer 4 - Later the same day as the Wagtail, along came 2 STONE-CURLEWS.
Lifer 5 - To provide the cake icing on an already-unbelievable week, 1 LESSER YELLOWLEGS popped in for a small stay.

Suffice to say, when I got Lifer 200, I celebrated right there and then!!!! Instant grin, elated "YES!" vocalisations, fist-pumping and a little dancing!!! I dipped on the reported Great Snipe and the Richard's Pipit in the week, but there'll be plenty of time in the years ahead for me to add them to the Life List! The week also cooked up my first sighting of a Swallowtail butterfly at Hickling Broad and a Chinese Water Deer on Cley Marshes.

Will be having the pizza to celebrate the 200th Lifer alongside the return of Springwatch later this month, adding 5 extra toppings for each new bird seen on holiday. I feel as though I've 'come of age' with my list. The road to 300 will be a slow and arduous one, but I am utterly, bloody-mindedly determined to get there. Later on, I'm going to review my Life List, as there's a possibility I forgot to list Snow & Lapland Bunting to it. I COULD have hit 200 in March when I saw a Smew at Kirkby Pits, close to the Lincolnshire towns of Coningsby and Woodhall Spa back in March.

What a week!!!!!!