Norfolk Day Three of Three Day Tour – 20th October

Today we headed to Cley. Although the winds were Southerly and not encouraging for a seawatch, I was sure an hours effort would see us add a few more birds to our total.

It was fairly slow going but several Red-throated Divers were sitting offshore, a few Common Scoter passed by and several parties of Gannets were also passing. A few Turnstone were also feeding along the shoreline plus Teal, Wigeon and Brent Geese also passed in small numbers, a little surprising given the conditions were 4 Skylarks watched flying in off the sea. Behind us in the Eye field there was a lovely flock of c100 Golden Plover and c150 Dark-bellied Brents

We then walked South along the shingle beach, in the first areas of weeds there was quite a few Skylark, plus a few Meadow Pipits a Reed Bunting and 2 Redwing, plus a nice flock of 60+ Goldfinch, with 20 Linnets. These groups of birds were flitting in and out and kept us bust sifting through them. We cleared this area and headed further on, I then heard the ‘ripple’ call of a Snow Bunting and a second later 6 Snow Buntings dropped on to the shingle in the fenced off area. They were quite alert so we waited until they started feeding and then we were able to move closer and get really nice scope views.

We then continued to the first pool, where there was a good selection of wildfowl, Wigeon, Teal, Shelduck, Gadwall & Shoveler. Amongst these there were also a female Pintail plus a female Greater Scaup.

We eventually reached Arnolds Marsh, where there was a good collection of waders, 140 Dunlin, 20 Ringed Plover, 4 Grey Plover, 20 Curlew, a Bar-tailed Godwit and 12 Redshank and a juvenile Peregrine also dashed by. Both Meadow and Rock Pipits were in abundance here too.

We lunched at the Cley NWT VC in the picnic area, whilst watching 2 Red kites, 2 Kestrels and 2 Buzzards plus a single Marsh Harrier!

We then headed around Walsey Hills, but couldn’t hear or find the Yellow-browed Warbler. It was fairly quiet in the amongst the trees, save nice a views of a Redpoll, there was also a few Greenfinch and Goldfinch, plus a small party of Tits.

We rounded off with a wander around Kelling, where we had nice views of 2 Stonechat, there was a couple of Snipe and again more Wigeon, Teal and an Egyptian Goose.