Grutto!

For a relatively small bird the black-tailed godwit manages to fill the Frisian countryside with its’ shashbuckling presence for just a few months every year before returning to the east coast of Africa.

This most colourful and flamboyant bird is better known round these parts as the “grutto”, which also accurately describes the call it makes loudly and constantly “grutto-utto-utto”.

It is possible to hear their call from quite far away as they rise high into the air making lots of noise and then in a spectacular display proceed to plummet from a great height before cooly pulling out of the free-fall dive in the last few metres and acting as if nothing had happened… 😮