Inspired by Bob and Annie's post I parked at Freshwater West at 0700 and set off in darkness for the hide - knowledge of the terrain helped here. First grey glimmer of light by the time I drew level with the hide - by then I'd heard water rail, teal, mallard and moorhen, and had put up lots of snipe in the fen meadow. I crept down to the hide along the east side of the hedge that leads down to it (recommended): I could hear lots of mallard and teal just ahead, but made it into the hide without spooking them. It became clearer that there were a lot of duck there - as well as 80-100 teal there were 24 mallard, 10-15 shoveler, 9 pintail feeding in a tight bunch, and 2 greylags. I could hear 3 Cetti's warblers.
At 0755, there was suddenly a loud chatter of starlings from the reedbed to the NW of the hide. This continued for 15 minutes until at 0810 they suddenly began to fly, in parties of a few hundred, in an ESE direction. At 0815 the chatter stopped abruptly.
At 0817 something spooked the ducks and they all flew at once.
At 0818 the two glossy ibis flew - they had evidently been roosting somewhere just W of the hide, unseen. They flew E past the hide, gained height, circled once and continued east. Terrible record shot, but recognizable.
At 0820, all went quiet. I set off home for breakfast. No raptors apart from a buzzard on the way back. I met Andy Bookless coming the other way and broke the bad news, hopefully he had some luck later.
A spectacular morning, thank you Bob and Annie!