Can anyone join the Tufty Club!

Sept 16th ..... 1100 am. There I was happily working away when suddenly the mobile vibrated violently in my pocket, with a breathless and very vocal Gibbard on the phone..............
TUFTED PUFFIN OARE MARSHES ON THE SWALE NOW !

Now then, my initial reaction was oh well no chance of getting off work but then I thought about it for another millisecond and said ..........I need this afternoon off .
Incredible as it may seem it was granted and the next 70 mins were spent in amazement as I carried on working until the time came to leave and drive down the A2 to Oare. On route I already knew the trail had gone cold but carried on regardless passing a certain Mr LGRE on the way and finally made it to Oare parked up with no problems at all and joined the small gathered crowd looking for the bird in the hope it would come back out of the Swale and reveal itself.

I settled down out of the wind with Tony Morris and later on joined by Gary T, Guy and others unaware of the crowd of hopefuls growing behind us . Many years ago lots of us I'm sure would have belonged to the Tufty Club, but today was a day that only the Magnificent 7, Murray E Wright (the name was so near to my own) and 6 visiting birders feasted their eyes on this Pacific top drawer bird.
It soon became apparent that birders were arriving from near and far, all points, East South, North and West and the crowd waited and waited........ but no Mr Tufty. All in all a bleeding cold day, but a memorable one for missing surely one of the rarest and bizarre birds to appear in the UK, and yet see so many old friends from my heavy twitching days that all was not lost .

Above we see on the far left Stephen Message, paint box at the ready, but it wasn't to be. John Clements looks down at his feet and drowns his sorrows, whilst Jack, Nigel, Jerry and a very cold looking Marcus look on. Johnny T peers above Mel Billingtons' head with Ron to the right.

The Oare approach road on an unusually busy day, note that the field on the right had to be opened for cars, whilst Mark Golley keeps his hands warm
Filby is NOT amused
Stu Piner and Chris Batty keep a careful vigil whilst the cyclist remembers great stunt artists like Evil Kenevil, attempting to cross the Swale on a bike!
Filby clutches his road map, and many now know where Oare is !
Steve Webb, blurry, out of focus, not as a result of poor camera craft but his ability to get from A to B in no time at all

Finally Brett and Paul enjoy their afternoon out in Kent, Somerset and Yorks, left behind in a hurry
Anyway, not to worry there'll be another!!

In the meantime, here's the Tufty Club
http://www.tuftyclub.org.uk/