O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8
October 30th - Bird Photography day tour
We organised a days photography for a keen and knowledgeable visiting wildlife photographer. We started the day with an unsuccessful attempt at Barn owls, but then Graham managed some excellent results at our feeding station, getting some really nice shots of Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Marsh Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit & Robin.
He was also fortunate to witness a small group of 20 Pink-footed Goose flying over the house, fairly unusual over here this far inland - we also had Grey Wagtail feeding on the roof of the house!
In the afternoon we headed up to one of my favourite spots for shooting waders from the car, & we managed some nice shots of Turnstone, Dunlin, Redshank & Greenshank.
On returning back we tried several spots for Barn Owl, and had lovely views of one of our local birds quartering but it decided not to perch preferring to be hunting after all the wet weather.
October 25th - Holme
Spent most of the time on the Holme marsh area, 2 Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, 500+ Pink-footed Goose over, but the highlight of the morning was a Red Kite drifting east high over the marsh then the Observatory and briefly out over The Wash, it straightened it's course and eventually disappeared along the coastline.
Lots of Redwing 120+ and 30+ Fieldfare
October 18th - Old Costessey
A short walk around the area of the Wensum produced Little Egret, Cetti's Warbler, Water Rail, Grey Wagtail & Barn Owl. Overhead many Redwing passed through , plus a smaller numbers of Fieldfare
October 17th - Garden Bird Photography Tutorial
Today we had 3 wildlife photographer at our feed station getting some nice shots of garden birds, plus a 1 hour presentation on technique, natural perches, composition and editing.
Everyone took home some nice shots, and a good range of species were photographed including Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Robin, Great Tit, Coal Tit & Chaffinch.
October 12th - Bird Photography Guided tour
We started off again at 7am and unfortunately a band of mist prevented us getting the local Barn owl on to camera, although we did see it briefly before departing, apparently it was showing well around 10am later that morning!
Up on the coast we started off with some shots of Curlew, Grey Plover & Redshank plus a very confiding Reed Bunting we also saw several Rock Pipits. We then spent a good while in an area I knew had been holding Corn Bunting & Grey Partridge, eventually we managed to locate 7+ Grey Partridge which we managed to get some shots of, but a group of 4-5 Corn Buntings seemed to have moved off by the time we had finished with the partridges although we did get some lovely shots of a Pied Wagtail coming to a drinking pool I had found a few days earlier.
We were inundated with Kestrels and I lost count of the number Chris photographed!
We headed along towards Titchwell, but passed the reserve and headed somewhere a little quieter. We found Bullfinch & Chris got some lovely reflection images of Coot & Tufted Ducks in one of the dykes.
We both shot some more Redshank, and managed at the end of the day to miss Barn owl again!
We then headed east & I stopped off to catch the Pink-footed Geese flying over heading for there roost, we had several 1000 fly over us, it was a great experience & Chris got some flight shots.
Much to my disdain my local bird has been in the same field morning and evening every night since!
It was a very enjoyable weekend and we recorded 93 species
Chris's website will no doubt feature some of the images he shot during the tour these can be seen by CLICKING HERE
October 11th - Bird Photography Guided tour
I spent the weekend with birdwatcher & bird photographer Chris Thomas from Wales.
Chris decided on a 2-day tour with ourselves, the main objective was adding to his list of species he had caught on camera - and also improving on previous images.
We started out at 7am and headed to the east of the county - and Chris managed some record shots of 7 Common Cranes, we also saw several 100 Golden Plover which on scrutiny held 20+ Ruff, as we drove around and stopped several times we added Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Pink-footed Goose and a single Bean Goose.
We tried Salthouse but it was over run with weekenders & dogs! I decided to move on swiftly & headed for one of the Cley hides where I knew the light would be good with a reasonable chance of wader & Marsh Harrier shots.
We arrived at Cley and sure enough Chris got some nice images of Kestrel, Marsh Harrier, Teal, Gadwall, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank & Ruff. We then moved on to the Burnhams & he added Bar-tailed Godwit & Knot 2 species he had not shot before.
We finished off in superb light with more Black-tailed Godwit and other waders & some great images of a Little Egret, a Merlin screamed over our heads & Chris just missed catching it on camera!
Despite trying several sites Barn owls eluded us.
October 31st - Holme/Thornham
Spent today at Holme & Thornham area, we started off with lots of Blackbird, Fieldfare & Redwing, it soon became apparent there were many 100's of birds in the area and flocks were coming to berries. A short distance inland and every hedgerow held droves of Blackbirds - it would be very difficult to put an estimate on numbers but I have never seen so many birds over such a wide area - birds were also present in good numbers inland.
At Holme we had a few Skylark, c30 passing over west, 4 Brambling, we flushed a Woodcock, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Crossbill over the pines, & superb views of a Pallas's Warbler near the Observatory - it showed extremely well from the 1st hide hovering in front of us revealing it's lovely yellow rump, the "six stripes" all in full view!!
Mid-afternoon we decided on a walk from the road through the orchards and along the east bank to the Observatory. The walk out was largely uneventful, but the return walk resulted in a few minutes of disbelief, excitement & panic!
As we reached the walked up through the final wooded section, I glanced across the recently mowed field and noticed several thrushes feeding on the ground. Lifting our binoculars both of us quickly homed in on a paler looking bird similar in size to the nearby Blackbirds, it also appeared to have noticeable head & face pattern. The tripod & scope went up quickly (we just had the one between us), I looked first, the bird was 100m away & I was faced with a bird I did recognise! Mark took a look & we both knew we were looking at an unusual thrush, having got over the initial surge of excitement I started reading out a description whilst Mark scribbled the notes, after a few minutes the bird flew up into the hedge with the other thrushes but was back down again after a few minutes. I gave Mark the chance to have a good look through the scope, discussing some of the features whilst he looked, the thrushes repeated their previous performance back into the hedgerow, but again returned a few minutes later.
I took the scope again reading out more description for Mark to write down, again letting Mark have another look - the thrushes once again flew up into the hedge. By now I was starting to recall some images in my head of 1st year/ female Dark-throated Thrush & felt that this bird certainly seemed to recall some of those characteristics, but with no field guide & no recent experience we weren't absolutely sure. I rang a friend and described the bird whilst he consulted his field guide, he suggested that it was showing many of the features we described. We were still wary & also rang the Observatory to let them know & see if they could get down, but they were very busy at the Obs & it would be a while. My main concern was trying to be sure whether the bird was Black-throated or Red-throated Thrush, I knew that the likelihood was it would be Black-throated, & we couldn't remember if the two were considered separate species or just forms of Dark-throated.
At 3.30PM two other birding mates arrived & both Mark through his bins and Connor through his scope briefly saw the bird back on in the top of the hedgerow again, but at 4PM many of the thrushes passed overhead presumably off to roost & there was no further sign. We decided to call Rare bird alert and put the bird out as a Dark-throated Thrush, although they obviously took a considered opinion and advertised it a Black-throated Thrush.
On returning home & consulting with Thrushes - we were relieved to find plate 120D which seemed to be very close to our bird, in some respects the plate in Lars Johnson shows better the greater covert, primary & tertial pattern. Having then read our description and consulted various field guides & images we were absolutely sure we had found a 1st year female BLACK-THROATED THRUSH.
Click here for a full description of the BLACK-THROATED THRUSH
Spent today at Holme & Thornham area, we started off with lots of Blackbird, Fieldfare & Redwing, it soon became apparent there were many 100's of birds in the area and flocks were coming to berries. A short distance inland and every hedgerow held droves of Blackbirds - it would be very difficult to put an estimate on numbers but I have never seen so many birds over such a wide area - birds were also present in good numbers inland.
At Holme we had a few Skylark, c30 passing over west, 4 Brambling, we flushed a Woodcock, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Crossbill over the pines, & superb views of a Pallas's Warbler near the Observatory - it showed extremely well from the 1st hide hovering in front of us revealing it's lovely yellow rump, the "six stripes" all in full view!!
Mid-afternoon we decided on a walk from the road through the orchards and along the east bank to the Observatory. The walk out was largely uneventful, but the return walk resulted in a few minutes of disbelief, excitement & panic!
As we reached the walked up through the final wooded section, I glanced across the recently mowed field and noticed several thrushes feeding on the ground. Lifting our binoculars both of us quickly homed in on a paler looking bird similar in size to the nearby Blackbirds, it also appeared to have noticeable head & face pattern. The tripod & scope went up quickly (we just had the one between us), I looked first, the bird was 100m away & I was faced with a bird I did recognise! Mark took a look & we both knew we were looking at an unusual thrush, having got over the initial surge of excitement I started reading out a description whilst Mark scribbled the notes, after a few minutes the bird flew up into the hedge with the other thrushes but was back down again after a few minutes. I gave Mark the chance to have a good look through the scope, discussing some of the features whilst he looked, the thrushes repeated their previous performance back into the hedgerow, but again returned a few minutes later.
I took the scope again reading out more description for Mark to write down, again letting Mark have another look - the thrushes once again flew up into the hedge. By now I was starting to recall some images in my head of 1st year/ female Dark-throated Thrush & felt that this bird certainly seemed to recall some of those characteristics, but with no field guide & no recent experience we weren't absolutely sure. I rang a friend and described the bird whilst he consulted his field guide, he suggested that it was showing many of the features we described. We were still wary & also rang the Observatory to let them know & see if they could get down, but they were very busy at the Obs & it would be a while. My main concern was trying to be sure whether the bird was Black-throated or Red-throated Thrush, I knew that the likelihood was it would be Black-throated, & we couldn't remember if the two were considered separate species or just forms of Dark-throated.
At 3.30PM two other birding mates arrived & both Mark through his bins and Connor through his scope briefly saw the bird back on in the top of the hedgerow again, but at 4PM many of the thrushes passed overhead presumably off to roost & there was no further sign. We decided to call Rare bird alert and put the bird out as a Dark-throated Thrush, although they obviously took a considered opinion and advertised it a Black-throated Thrush.
On returning home & consulting with Thrushes - we were relieved to find plate 120D which seemed to be very close to our bird, in some respects the plate in Lars Johnson shows better the greater covert, primary & tertial pattern. Having then read our description and consulted various field guides & images we were absolutely sure we had found a 1st year female BLACK-THROATED THRUSH.
Click here for a full description of the BLACK-THROATED THRUSH