BIRD NEWS:458

Continuing my late January trip to WWT Arundel, the Trumpeter swans were tucking in to their weed-feed and not as welcoming as usual - in fact it was only after a few minutes, as I walked around to the nearby hide, that one actually spotted me instead of its brunch!

On exiting the nearby hide, I spotted a bird in the lakeside greens of the trumpeter enclosure that was not a trumpeter swan - at first I thought snipe - but then I checked a bird guide in the next hide along, and also recalled Liz had mentioned seeing a water rail near the trumpeters - and realized it was the water rail.

It was busy pecking about the waterlogged lawn, occasionally sticking its long beak deeper into the wet soils to extract its brunch. I was about to leave after taking a couple of shots, but decided to take a few more, as at that stage I was uncertain if it was a snipe or water rail, and wanted to ID it later from the photos if I couldn't in a guide book.

I ended up taking rather a lot of pictures. As I continued to hang around, just after I put my camera to bag, a second water rail emerged from the growth to the right and the first one chased it round and round and away, before munching further afield - but that was not until I had taken a few more shots.