A grave approach

Tuesday 30 January 2018
An unexpected bit of bright weather had me off to Great Massingham church again to look for the Hawfinches. I arrived quite late around 11am and there were about a dozen or so people already there.  The Hawfinches had been showing but were mostly in the shadows of the Yew trees just occasionally popping out into the sunlight.

Taking the shine slightly off this occasion was the fact that half a dozen of the photographers had decided to stand amid the graves. There was really no need for this, especially as they were the people with the biggest lenses. I felt it was incredibly disrespectful and quite unnecessary just to gain an addition 5 meters. The second row in of people in this pics were all back from the graves. Such disrespectful behaviour is becoming more the norm these days and does put me off going to look for birds that pull the crowds.

But the Hawfinches were active and after a while of hiding in the shadows one bird came out to feed at the front of the tree. Bit of a soft image due to the wind (meteorological).

After this I went for a hunt round the lanes for Bramblings and found a flock of some 150 birds.
A few flew close to the car and one even stayed around while I floundered about getting the camera set up !

I then rounded the session off with a trip to Titchwell and added Velvet Scoter to my year list and saw some impressive flocks of Golden Plover.

The school run beckoned so just time to have a quick look at Holkham Bay for some Shorelarks but it was getting late and dark, so ended as just a nice walk.