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18 May 2025 Schnake

I do love serpents. Normally, Adders. Seeing a Grass Snake it quite an unusual event for me. But last month I had an incredible encounter with a Grass Snake trying to swallow a large Common Toad whole. The toad had inflated itself to deter the snake, but the serpent was gamely expanding its gape, dislocating its jaw or whatever they do to eat large stuff. I couldn't stay around to see the outcome, but it looked like the snake were winning. Here's a sample photo - and if I find time in a hectic spring to process some more, I will do so. Definitely an earlyish contender for 'wildlife experience of the year'!

On my birthday, I had to try out some cricket bats in Huntingdon. That put me within a few minutes' drive of Grafham water shortly after news broke of a summer-plumaged Spotted Sandpiper there. This was the second Cambridgeshire record and the first since the early 1990s - which I saw, as I was living in the county at the time. I popped over and watched it well at close range. I think it's only the fourth I have seen in Britain - three being breeding-plumage adults.

I am doing a lot of bird surveying currently: it pays so much better than writing and editing... After one dawn Breeding Bird Survey, I headed over to the Broads in an attempt to find a Red-footed Falcon during the biggest influx since 1992 or to chance upon the wandering Booted Eagle flying overhead. A fail on both, clearly, so I spent the afternoon having a butcher's at a female Red-foot tat Hickling Broad (found previously at Potter Heigham Marshes, by Dawn Balmer). With patience, we had good views alongside at least 28 Hobby - the most I have seen at a Norfolk site. First up, one of the Hobbies, followed by the RFF.