The past weekend I attended a very enjoyable WSRS Autumn meeting in Norfolk. Having attended last year's Autumn meeting, I was excited at the prospect of getting away from the busy soundscape of South East England (where I've been living since September). As a special treat this year we were joined by the Society's President, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson.

As soon as I finished the week's work on Friday I drove to Hunstanton where we stayed at a very cozy youth hostel, a few miles away from Snettisham and the area known as The Wash. The Wash is one of Europe's largest estuaries and is home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds. This makes for spectacular murmurations, especially in periods of Spring Tides when the birds are pushed towards the shore by the rising waters.

The Saturday morning weather forecast looked surprisingly good for this time of the year so we decided to head out at 3 am. This way we'd have our recording gear prepared as the tide rose and pushed an enormous number of birds towards our microphones. Or at least this was the plan.