Hear my Crane a-comin' - Filey, 23rd April

Back to Filey after the best part of a week in London (having now fully shipped out), today was the first day with serious time to kill on the patch, and the first in many with a relatively calm window of opportunity weather-wise. Relatively gentle north-easterlies and overcast skies promised something, but aside from good numbers of Phylloscs, the first hour or so was quiet – until a series of familiar deep, croaking sounds echoed from the west.

After a few seconds scanning, there they were - three magnificent Cranes, approaching from high (and quite distant – surprising how far their calls carried and/or how my ageing hearing is holding up...), making their way slowly down the coast.

Having found them at 1303 and put the news out (apparently pretty much everyone connected subsequently), I watched them for almost five minutes as they veered south, thermalled over the Dams and the west of town, and eventually moved on. By coincidence, I picked them up on the northern edge of the Old Tip, within fifty metres of where I found the Great Grey Shrike a couple of weeks back; surely time to pitch a tent there and make it permanent.....