September 27th – Exclusive Birding Day in South Norfolk

Today we guided an American lady visiting the UK, she was also joining the High Tide tour tomorrow, so she asked we concentrated on woodland and passerine species today.

Whilst we headed for the reliable and interesting farmland and woodland habitat of The Brecklands, we did stop off of the impressive post breeding gathering of Stone Curlew, there was slightly less than the 85 of last week with around 40 Stone Curlew present. There was also a nice group of c20 Tree Sparrow and around 15 Grey partridge, plus Yellowhammer, flocks of Linnets, a few Goldfinch and Greenfinch.

Next stop we had to work quite hard in the woodland, as early autumn forest birding is tricky, with leaf cover and birds not flocked up. However, over 2 hours we managed to see most of the target birds – Firecrest, Marsh tit, Treecreeper, several Nuthatch, Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit and Mistle Thrush.

We then headed off to Lakenheath, a great start with Hobby and Kingfisher before we even got on to the trails! Then great views of up to 5 Hobby, hawking dragonflies, amazingly these were hawking over 9 Whooper Swans, freshly arrived from Iceland! North meets South. We also had Bearded Tits & Reed Bunting on a circuit of the reserve.