The April Fools joke that wasn't.

Thursday evening whilst watching the TV I received what I thought at the time was a text from Birdguides which told me "A Spoonbill showing from the EM hide at Brandon Marsh this evening".Knowing my friend Kath had never seen one I sent a text to her in case she wanted to go for it early the next morning.

Very early on Friday morning I received a text from Kevin Grocock saying "Spoonbill showing well on the Teal Pool".Pleased to hear it was hanging around unlike the Marsh Lane one which cleared off at dawn I dropped everything and raced over to Brandon Marsh to get a Warks year tick.

What had happened was that when Kath had arrived there at dawn to be told by Kevin that there was no Spoonbill around and never had been they both thought I had made the news up as an April Fools joke.To get their own back they sent the text to me.I'm not sure they believed me that I thought the news was genuine.If there was an April Fool's joke doing the rounds it was on me if anyone.

So here I was at Brandon Marsh early in the morning not having done any of my chores with no Spoonbill to see and to make matters worse the warm sunny weather forecast had not showed up as it was gloomy,damp and chilly.Wonderful !!!!

The only decent thing on a miserable morning was 50+ Golden Plovers on Willow island.

Needing to be cheered up I went to the cafe for an early lunch and a much needed cup of tea.After this break things cheered up a lot.Not the weather mind you if anything it was gloomier and colder.Where was the 18 degrees promised? What cheered me up a lot was from the Carlton hide a Chiffchaff decided to abandon singing out from the tree tops and ventured down onto some nearby bushes.

Then a pair of Common Buzzard turned up one carrying nesting material but as usual with raptors they always fly away and never towards you.

I'd popped in to the EM hide a few times during the day to join the Crake watchers but it had not shown at all day.Leaving the hide and walking down the main path I had a bit of luck when a Treecreeper showed pretty well and I was able to get some decent shots of a bird that I've had trouble doing well with in the past.