Escuse me waiter, there's a cuckoo in my dip

8pm on Friday night I get the text I was hoping would not arrive, the cuckoo had been seen again in Kelling along the path where Jamie and I had spent an unsuccessful hour diligently looking for a farmer to abuse, earlier that day. Typical. There was no way I was going again that would be silly. By 9.00pm I had swapped numerous texts and calls with fellow birders Shaun and Bradders Junior to confirm I was definitely not going again, by 9.45pm I had packed my rucksack, made some sarnies and set the alarm for 4.30am. I just couldn't say no. Yet again I was driving somehow too!

I picked up Shaun at 4.50am and this time we made good time arriving back at Kelling before 7.00am. There was a distinct lack of cars and birders (and cuckoos!). We met Bradders Junior who had made his own way up and then spent an almost birdless 2 hours checking every bush, trees and post. The plan had been tick cuckoo within 10 minutes, do some high fives and wiping of brows, get in the car and either get home early or possibly tick AMERICAN Golden Plover at Breydon. No time now to go to Breydon despite news that the AMERICAN Golden Plover was showing well so off home we went again, tails between our legs. Such a shame it was not a Pacific as I need that and could with some effort have got that on either dip.

Back at home feeling a bit stupid for going up again on such sketchy news I wait for the inevitable that an hour after we left the cuckoo was found again this time riding a unicycle up and down Cley High Street, juggling chainsaws, before stopping to sign copies of it's latest book "100 sure fire ways to disappear 2 minutes before Monkey arrives" . Well thankfully this didn't happen but what did happen was after 5 days of study the AMERICAN Golden Plover turned into a Pacific Golden Plover! Fair enough, it had only been showing well for the best part of a week! There's no point getting the hump, I just chuckled to myself and opened the second bottle of scotch. There's always next time.