A grey and beautiful day

8 May 2015

A visit to Sculthorpe Mill in search of Grey Wagtail proved a success. A lovely sunny start to the day and arrival before the pub opened and the hordes descended allowed Oli and I to watch a pair of Grey Wagtails gathering food and flying to their nest to feed the young (at a respectful distance). Being the only people there watching these most elegant of birds and seeing their private life felt quite a privilege - we didn't hang around in case they felt disturbed and then headed over to Sculthorpe Moor Community Nature Reserve.

 At Sculthorpe we were looking for Water Voles and the recently sighted Water Shrews but both eluded us. We were however given a VIP preview of the new broad walk and hide - looks to be fantastic. So onto East bank at Cley en route to pick up books from Wildsounds. Too windy for the Bearded Tits which we had been told were showing well earlier in the week, but a Lapwing obliged with an aerial flyby.

 and a Grey Heron on the Iron Road at Salthouse was busy fishing.

 Plus the ever present Avocets chasing everything

 Sedge Warblers were being very un cooperative and every time one emerged we either were not ready or it was just too brief - always a bit of vegetation in the way. Nearby and one of Oli's friends had told him of a couple of local Nightingales, so we pitched up and spent a while listening to them sing in full sunshine mid afternoon - of course no chance of actually seeing them,

 and finally back to Great Bircham and a walk round the village pond where there are two Little Grebes, but they always kept their distance so we resorted to some more familiar Norfolk Pond life !

 Egyptain Goose

 Coots having a scrap - three against one ? No wonder it was dive...dive ...dive !

 and would any village pond be complete without one of these - Greylag Goose

April Summary

Some very unpredictable weather during the month, a few lovely warm days, a bitterly cold east wind at times and very strong winds, plus torrential downpours. 

end of April

This saw a couple of visits to Snettisham, the first being a quick look for a Little Bunting that had been present a few days. The bird was quite tricky to see as it spent most of it's time grovelling around under the buckthorn or perched up and disappearing quickly. Luckily on my visit the bird was showing but a way off for a few minutes and then disappeared. Managed a long distance, heavily cropped, record shot: although a bit like the previous Lapland Buntings, it was in fine spring plumage and the best looking Little Bunting I've seen.

a second visit a few days later and the Bunting had gone, but there were at least six Ring Ouzels around, although very jumpy. Plus an obliging Meadow Pipit showing off some fresh plumage.

 Returning home in time to catch a bit of the local cricket and this run out (which according to the umpire wasn't).

but it was !

Back to blogging

Been away from the blog for a while now and fell into posting bird pics on Facebook. After a conversation about communications and blogging with my friend Tom Bedford (of the Birdless Cuddesdon blog) he discussed with me his concerns about blatting everyone on Facebook with loads of bird pics who may not really be interested. I realised I had fallen into this trap and so have decided to post the majority of pics onto the blog, apart from the occasional Facebook crowd pleaser. So as a catch up here is a quick summary:

1 April 2015

I am delighted that the two Tree Sparrows (left) are continuing to visit and feed. They are a daily occurrence and never did I imagine I would ever live in a garden with these fantastic birds. The chopping down of the trees opposite to make way for 12 new houses could be the reason they have arrived as it seems too coincidental, after the hedges and trees were decimated - a week later we got the Tree Sparrows. A silver lining to that particular cloud.

2 April 2015

Goldfinches were still visiting the feeders in good numbers

6 April 2015

 and the garden also hosted a couple of Stock Doves adding a diversion to the worryingly large numbers of Woodpigeons, some eight birds any time of the day. They are unable to get onto the feeders but hang around the bottom for the castings of seeds from above.

 7 April 2015

Went off to Norwich armed with £2K to buy a car and drop Tom off for his Westend Experience drama class. Such a beautiful day that I decided to wait for the car salesman routine and have a walk at Weybourne where a few Lapland Buntings had been seen in the last week or so. I arrived and walked along the cliffs in warm sunshine and not another birdwatcher to be seen - bliss. Walking past coastguard cottages and along the recently ploughed field edges I was scanning for Lapland Bunting

 Apparently the birds when they were present had been seen in the first ploughed field margin near coastguards cottages. First two fields and nothing, but a lovely day and putting off the car buying saga had me going to the third field ....

and then overhead the unmistakable call of a Lapland Bunting. Two birds and they landed in the field, albeit a way off. These were two cracking Spring birds coming into breeding plumage, I think the best I've ever seen, so different to the autumn migrants I am used to on Lundy

 walking back to the car park and the Rookes were stepping out.

The day ended in Norwich with me still having £2K in my pocket having been unsuccessful with a car purchase.

13 April 2015

Garden birds today included a male Blackcap and a few Jays flying over the fields.

18 April 2015 - 24 April
the fields at the back of the house are turning that rather un natural yellow colour with the Oil Seed Rape - such a controversial crop and leaving aside the unfounded scare mongering about it's harmful effects on health, I still don't really like having it so close, especially when they are spraying it with god knows what.

 Whitethroats seem to be everywhere, singing loudly and fighting from the tops of bushes, a great sign of spring

 and Hares abound in the fields but this year are being really difficult to creep up on. One field I drove past on the way to work had 13 Hares in it, while a visitor to the shop said they'd seen 27 in one field. A sign of their success or farmers continually increasing their field size ?

 Grey Partridges

 Hare in field after a rain shower

Every little helps

So the Twite became a little more approachable, though it was very slippery on the Saltmarsh, quite a bit of creeping to get close to them .

These a couple from a flock of some 60 very jumpy birds at Thornham Harbour.

And then two Waxwings in the car park opposite Tesco on an exceptionally dull day which required 2000 plus iso on the camera and some shaky hand held pics

and I watched this individual Waxwing eat 17 of these rose hips - how do they do it ??? Surely they will explode !

end of year

Autumn and the winter approach have proved very busy with little time for birding and even less for adding to the blog. But one of the last days of the year saw me looking for Twite at Thornham Harbour, a bird I hadn't seen all year and one that I knew the Tims would like to see during their week in Norfolk.

the birds were quite flighty but kept coming back to a flash in the meadow for a few seconds before flying back to the salt marsh, and just occasionally a few would rest on the fence wire.

While waiting for these great little birds, some 70 of them, a flock of 17 Snipe flew up from the meadow having been flushed by a Marsh Harrier. only 12 of them here.

A few Bar-tailed Godwits and Curlews were on the creek edges.

Then it was to Titchwell for dusk and the Raptor roost, which held one stunning male Hen Harrier, a female Hen Harrier, at least five Marsh Harriers and a Sparrohawk. Last bird of the day was a Barn Owl - but perhaps most stunning was the moon, well half of it at least.

A Steppe in the right direction

The Steppe Grey Shrike which had been present at Burnham Norton since sunday was reported as still showing this morning (tuesday) so I decided to have an hour off the paperwork, go for a walk and hopefully see this first for Norfolk.

I arrived at Norton and to my surprise found somewhere to park in the small car park. I guess most of the heavies had already been and given it was a weekday things were a little quieter. The walk at Norton is really good with a seawall to walk along or through the middle of the reserve - this is where the bird was. So a twenty minute walk and I arrived at a small group of people to be told that it had been showing quite well but now had disappeared behind more distant bushes. There was however this Kestrel on the fence line that the Shrike had been using.

I was aware of a fair bit of abuse being levelled at this Kestrel and this was the reason the Shrike had moved further back. Then up it popped, quite some way off. I was invited to use someone's scope and  had reasonable views. The decision, to stay an extra ten minutes or bail out and get back to the paperwork ? I stayed, and watched the Shrike make it's way methodically along the bush line, but getting further away all the time. The Kestrel moved down opening up the area the Shrike had previously been in, and not surprisingly the Shrike flew back to the near fences allowing for some pictures to be had - a couple below, the low light levels showing off the birds light peachy wash to the underparts: