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Saturday 25 June 2016

Visit to Father & A Second Incredible Evening With the Mega Great Knot at Holme!

KNOT
Gore Point, Holme

I overslept this morning, but just made it in time to pick my Mother up and take her to the hairdressers in Hunstanton for 9am! Whilst we were there, I got a call from Summerville House Care Home, which worried me initially – they phoned to let me know that they had called a doctor out to Father, as he was extremely lethargic this morning and has been since they changed his old tablet Quetiapine over to Risperidone. Mother and I were going to visit him after her hair appointment anyway – on the way, the care home phoned again to say the doctor had arrived and wanted to speak to us – I said we could speak to him in person, as we were only 2 minutes away.

At the care home, we chatted with the emergency on-call doctor who said his new medication had been prescribed as 1mg and that it could have been the lowest dose at 0.5mg – he recommended for Father to come off the Risperidone for the next three days and would ask his normal GP to review after that and to start up again with the lowest dose available. Mother and I then went to see Father who was extremely lethargic and could hardly speak to us. He did liven up a little and we took him outside in the wheelchair in the very hot sunshine, but he was not happy at all and insisted on going back inside as he said he was cold. We took him to the dining room to join others for lunch, but he just couldn't eat anything he was so sleepy. But to our delight he did manage some chocolate mousse dessert. We took him back to the conservatory in his wheelchair and he was sick, poor man. The staff took him to the bathroom to clean him up and he was sick again we were told. Obviously Risperidone does not suit him at all. So distressing to see him like this and Mother was very upset. We kissed him goodbye when they brought him back and transferred him to his comfy chair in the conservatory and we left to go to Hunstanton.

Went to Sainsbury's to get some shopping for Mother and then picked up some fish 'n' chips for our very late lunch at 2.30pm. There were tons of people soaking up the sun on The Green at Hunstanton. Arrived back at Holme to enjoy our fish 'n' chips. I had taken a Clarityn (hayfever) tablet earlier this morning as my hayfever is extra bad this year and I think this had made me feel extremely tired for some reason. I just couldn't keep my eyes open and went for a siesta on Father's old bed and the cat joined me! I must have been out for the count for ages, as when I woke up it was 4.50pm. I looked at the pager and it said that the Great Knot was back at Gore Point, Holme again! Mother had also been asleep in the dining room – I asked her if she wanted to see the Great Knot, but she said she was too tired, so off I went again for the second night running.
Great Knot with Knot
Its in there somewhere, honest!

Knot at Gore Point, Holme.


There were considerably more cars by the 5-bar gate along the Firs Road at Holme than last night, but I managed to get one space, which was very lucky. Headed out to the beach and joined other birders to watch the Great Knot again. The views were more hazy than last night, but still good none the less. As the evening dwindled away, the spectacular Knot flock and Great Knot moved closer, although still not close enough for SLR photography. I got some cracking video though, improvement on last night's attempts. There were around eight of us standing and looking east, towards the end of the evening and as the tide crept in to our feet, the person standing closest to the water had to move around the back of the others and re-position our tripod, we all did this about four times, shuffling around just as the Knot were with the incoming tide. As the seaweed covered rock pools were covered with tide, the entire flock went up and flew across and in front of us – it was breathtaking and I had never stood next to so many thousand of Knot as such a close range – it was awesome! The Great Knot favoured the back of the flock though, which again was too far for SLR photography. We all watched in fascination as the Knot ran back and forth with the tide, preened, slept and jostled for positions. At around 8.20pm (a couple minutes later than last night), most of the flock headed east, leaving only a few hundred Knot by the water's edge and the Great Knot was not amongst them.
 
You can just hear Danny Porter singing 'Dirty Water' by Status Quo!


We all headed back across the wet sands, leaving one birder behind. Visited Mother for a short while before returning home and spent the rest of the evening watching Adele headline on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury – she was incredible, what a voice!
One birder remains, watching the Great Knot!

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