Up and down couple days but two new species added to the yearlist. Walking down the West Bank with Rob yesterday morning we had 4 waxwings (190) flying west...very nice. The bad news for the day came in the evening with a pager message of an ortolan bunting on the brackish marsh - another new bird for the reserve missed. From talking to someone who was on site but didn;t see it, it was feeding with the twite and Lapland buntings on the brackish marsh until something flushed everything. It was the only bird not to return!

Today brought new hope and it started well with 3 waxwings south down the west bank first thing. There were lots of thrushes, finches and starlings moving west and we scored another 15 waxwings over the reedbed where we were working (another 10 were also seen). A whooper swan south would have been a nice addition but we couldn't get onto it. Sitting around at lunchtime, I got onto a passerine flying towards us. Lark, short tail, then it called and flew right over us, it was a woodlark (191) and only my second record at Titchwell. A walk out at dusk produced merlin, ringtail hen harrier, 5000 roosting starlings and a good count of 140+ roosting LBB gulls.