Mega Thrush is number 450

Woken up by a phone call at 1130 last night-Colin wanted to know if we were going to Kent. Looked at the pager-female Dusky Thrush in Margate Cemetery! There has not been a really twitchable bird on the mainland since 1959 so it was going to be a biggy. Was not intending to go out this weekend but decided to try.
We got down there not long after 1000  to find not surprisingly a long line of parked cars. Met a birder at the main entrance and followed his directions which got us nowhere, but luckily met someone more reliable who pointed us in the right direction. Must have been around 500 people when we reached the right spot, including Bill Last and Julian Bahlero.
Big problem was that the thrush was spending all the time in a Sycamore and was very hard to see unless you chose the right spot. occasionally it would move and over the course of an hour or so I managed to get some good views and a number of reasonable images.

After a good hour with the bird we left and I was pleasantly surprised to run into John Bartlett just arriving.

We then headed off to Yocklets bank where we found an excellent display of Lady Orchids and Early Purple Orchids. One Fly was also flowering but the White helleborines and most of the Twayblades were not. After failing last year I managed to locate the Herb Paris.
Park Gate was a bit disappointing. The Early Purples among the Cowslips were nice and Colin located a few rosettes of Common Spotted Orchid but we could not see any sign of Monkey (we were a week earlier than last year and they had only just started then).