April 8th & 9th 2019 – Norfolk guided birding 2 day tour

April 8th Day One of two

We started the day along the river at Santon Downham, it was surprising as it in just 3 days a lot of the Redpoll, Brambling and thrushes had moved on. Nevertheless, there was still a few smart male Brambling, plus Siskin, Treecreeper, Nuthatch and Marsh tit were evident. A pair of Mandarin were up and down the river but no sign today of Saturdays Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers.

We then headed north and fortunately the Goshawks were performing well and we had two separate views of different Goshawks, as well as Buzzard, Red Kite, and Sparrowhawk. The nearby Stone Curlew were almost impossible to see in the heat haze. So I decided to try our luck elsewhere, fortunately this was a good idea, as we had much closer views of firstly a pair of Stone Curlew and then another single one.

We next headed to Lynford where we had a good afternoon, with two Firecrest showing very well, plus views of the roosting Tawny Owl, Crossbills put in a very brief appearance, but we couldn’t locate and Hawfinches. There was a nice pair of Mistle Thrush, plus a few Fieldfare in the paddock area. More Brambling were seen and 1-2 Yellowhammer were still visiting the feed area.

April 9th Day Two of two

We started the day at Holkham, there was immediately great views of Marsh Harrier on arrival and we also located Golden Plover and Ruff by scanning from the new raised visitor area. we then walked on to the Jordon hide, from here it was pretty amazing with several Spoonbills, plus Little Egrets, 2 Great White Egrets and Cattle Egret! There was also a pair of Garganey, which were eventually located after quite a bit of searching.

We stopped off on the way back at the Washington hide, where we had really nice close views of a male Marsh harrier, we also found a few late Pink-footed geese, as well as 2 Barnacle Geese. There was still some 20 Wigeon, a few Teal, 5 Avocet and a single Whimbrel flew over.

As we walked back through the woodland we also noted Treecreeper, Blackcap, Chiff-chaff, Long-tailed tits and a Cetti’s warbler.

We headed on to Titchwell and had our lunch in the picnic area. We then took a look at the main scrape, we got off to a great start with nice views of Bearded Tits.

Out on the marsh there was a nice group of 60 Brent Geese,Sandwich tern, 20 Avocet, 2 Little Ringed Plover, Curlew, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit, 10 Black-tailed godwit, Turnstone and 3 Ruff. There was also at least 70 Mediterranean Gulls, a now regular feature!

Down on the beach there was Grey Plover and 50+ Sanderling. The final highlight of the day came when we visited Patsy’s pool, there was a Jack Snipe just visible on the edge of the reeds!