The hieroglyphs

Wet and windy weather, dark mornings and even darker evenings. Hard to resist the lure of a local Hoopoe isn't it?
Add to fact that the bird was practically in Norwich too - well Crostwick to be precise but only a fifteen minute spin from home. I got there around 11am and the bird was feeding about thirty feet away from the fence, which incidentally was as close as it got. Photographing it was tricky though, the fence was high and those in the know had brought crates or wooden blocks to stand on. I had to stand on the tips of my toes and balance my lens precariously on the fence. And being November the light was pretty poor. But I managed some okayish shots in the end as it fed around the horse paddock. This was the first Hoopoe I've seen in the UK. I must have seen five or six in Ireland and all of those have been late March / early April overshoots.

At one stage the Hoopoe started to get a little grief from a local Magpie. But it was having none of that and put its crest up a couple of times to show he wasn't moving from his paddock.

After an hour or so of standing on toes and with the Hoopoe showing no signs of coming any closer, I took off towards Felbrigg Hall to look for the juvenile Glossy Ibis. A bit of hike over towards the lake (the last time I visited there was a for a Red-rumped Swallow in April 2014). The Ibis was in the paddock at the rear of the lake, feeding busily among the rushes and boggy ground.

Glossy Ibis, Felbrigg Hall NT, Norfolk

A brown bird against a brown background - not great shots but still another UK tick.
So, a Hoopoe and an Ibis together. Not Egyptian hieroglyphics but mid-November in Norfolk!