D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
DAY ONE - North Norfolk
Another excellent two day tour, inclusive of fantastic clear blue skies! We started at 07.30 on the Saturday morning & headed off towards the coast to pick up the other two members of today's tour. En-route a stop at one of our favoured localities, resulted in superb close up views both in flight & perched of 2 Barn owls.
We collected the other two from Titchwell & made our way to Thornham, where we treated to field full of birds, there was at least 1500 Golden Plover, plus 20 Ruff, 50 Curlew, 5 Snipe, 40 Linnet, 60 Shelduck, Little Egret,& Grey Plover. We spent some time concentrating on separating out the overhead calls of the Scandinavian Rock pipits from Meadow Pipit.
We moved on to Titchwell where we had lovely close views of Water Pipit, Teal, Shoveler & Snipe just a few metres from the hide, out on the scrape there was 15 Pintail, 100 Teal,
2 Goldeneye, 2 Spotted Redshank - which we spent time discerning the subtle differences between these & Common Redshank.
A walk along the beach and dunes eventually resulted in lovely views of 9 Snow Bunting, by sitting quietly up ahead of the birds we eventually had the flock right in front of us & were able to pick out 2 adult males amongst the 1st years & females. The sea was relatively quiet but we picked out 2 Common Eider & 10 Common Scoter.
We then had lunch in one of the harbour areas where we watched Turnstone, 30 roosting Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Redshank & Brent Goose at close range. After this we visited the Wells area & I was again able to locate an adult Black Brant feeding amongst a group of 250 Brent Geese.
We headed for Holkham and made a short stop before parking, we were treated to nice scope views of 2 hunting Short-eared Owls.
The day finished with 25,000 Pink-feet coming in to roost, plus Marsh Harrier, and as the light faded we heard both Cetti's Warbler & Bearded Tit calling from the reedbed in front of us.
DAY TWO - East Norfolk
An extremely cold and frosty start to the day! We stopped off at a local Mill along the Wensum valley and had nice views of a Barn Owl, plus 2 Great Spotted Woodpecker, & lots of Redwing.
We then headed for the Yare valley, we started with wonderful, close views of 100's of Wigeon, the birds were lethargic in the freezing conditions. In the beautiful blue skies, their watery reflections made wonderful portraits!
A Peregrine screamed by in full hunting mode, swerving after Woodpigeons in the distance
Moving east along the valley we found our target species c50 Bean Goose & c15 White-fronted Goose , these were alongside Pink-footed Goose, and a combination of flight views, calls and scope views provided us with a full analysis of identification criteria.
In this area we also managed to see , Snipe, Wigeon & Teal. Also very nice views of Chinese Water Deer.
We now moved on to the Broads area, and were treated to amazing views of two Common Cranes feeding close to the road, on to Horsey for lunch & lots of small skeins of Pink-feet passed overhead along with the occasional
Marsh Harrier
The day finished at the raptor roost - & yet again this site did not disappoint!! - 27 Common Cranes inclusive of 1 flock of 22 flew right in front of us into the setting sun!!, 60+ Marsh Harrier, 1 Sparrowhawk, & 1 Barn Owl,
Over the two days we recorded 93 species!
An extremely cold and frosty start to the day! We stopped off at a local Mill along the Wensum valley and had nice views of a Barn Owl, plus 2 Great Spotted Woodpecker, & lots of Redwing.
We then headed for the Yare valley, we started with wonderful, close views of 100's of Wigeon, the birds were lethargic in the freezing conditions. In the beautiful blue skies, their watery reflections made wonderful portraits!
A Peregrine screamed by in full hunting mode, swerving after Woodpigeons in the distance
Moving east along the valley we found our target species c50 Bean Goose & c15 White-fronted Goose , these were alongside Pink-footed Goose, and a combination of flight views, calls and scope views provided us with a full analysis of identification criteria.
In this area we also managed to see , Snipe, Wigeon & Teal. Also very nice views of Chinese Water Deer.
We now moved on to the Broads area, and were treated to amazing views of two Common Cranes feeding close to the road, on to Horsey for lunch & lots of small skeins of Pink-feet passed overhead along with the occasional
Marsh Harrier
The day finished at the raptor roost - & yet again this site did not disappoint!! - 27 Common Cranes inclusive of 1 flock of 22 flew right in front of us into the setting sun!!, 60+ Marsh Harrier, 1 Sparrowhawk, & 1 Barn Owl,
Over the two days we recorded 93 species!
DECEMBER 6th & 7th - TWO DAY BIRDWATCHING WINTER TOUR
DAY TWO EAST NORFOLK
DAY ONE NORFOLK COAST
DAY TWO EAST NORFOLK
DAY ONE NORFOLK COAST
