There are places that are so rich in treasures that what would be a pearl elsewhere is merely mundane there. It's lustre dimmed by a much brighter constellation. Some places are lucky enough to be just that.

 Step forward, RSPB Lakenheath. It's you I'm talking about. Yesterday was a day of glories. Birds that would turn heads and have people running to see seemed so common there as to be relegated to the sidelines by things even more exotic

 The reeds, the woods, the sky, everything was alive.Trembling with extravagance in the guise of the red footed falcon performing just like a trapeze artist; tumbling and rolling, soaring, swooping, diving, and revealing it's wonderful anthracite body and blood red legs. Legs that are honed and like grappling hooks; several times it used them to snatch a dragonfly out of the air, and like in flight refuelling, flip it's legs up so the beak could tear into the insect. It was one of the most reflexive actions I've ever seen. Pure instinct. Spot, catch, devour. 

Swifts were so abundant that the ponds were almost hazy with the blur of birds streaking at little over head height. At another, house martins flew low enough to momentarily break the surface of the water and grab the tiniest sip to drink before veering at right angles to pluck an insect. 

Above us only clouds sang John Lennon. Above us yesterday was a cavalcade of Hobbies and Marsh Harrier. These are birds that many bird watchers fall into a swoon simply thinking about let alone see.  At Lakenheath, they're like buses, always one trundling across the skyline. We counted seven at one point: quartering the ground, spiralling up and down, and once a pair passing food between each other. 

I am increasingly convinced now that some birds virtually play to the gallery; they know they are magnificent, they know their worth as rarities and blow in migrants, and just like starlets on the beaches at Cannes, they promenade for the paparazzi. They perform, they tease, they excite. As the Savi's warbler so clearly did. We heard it's rattlesnake like song, imagine dried peas being shaken in a tube, a few long grass stalks quiver, a bush vibrate and then the slow reveal: the branches parted and there it was in full view ready for it's close up shots. The paparazzi responded perfectly: motor drives whirring, lens poked out, volley upon volley of photographs taken. 

All the time this was going on, marsh harriers were circling nearby, and no one bothered to even look their way. An embarrassment of riches.