Norfolk Day Three of Three Day Tour – 3rd November
We headed for the Brecks today and had a slightly later start to allow the early morning rain to pass through. It was still damp and drizzly when we arrived at our first port of call. After a bit of searching I managed to locate 4 Stone Curlew still present, crouching and static looking a little miserable in the cool wet weather. Despite looking a bit fed up, they were showing well and we had good views of Stone Curlew, 3 adults and a 1st calendar year bird.
We then headed to another filed in the same area and located several Tree Sparrow, though the wet conditions hindered us getting good views as they disappeared into the hedgerow & cover crop. There was also several Reed Bunting plus a nice flock of Lapwing. Nearby, as we looked to get better views of the Tree Sparrows, there was also views of Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush a few Fieldfare and a Brambling mixed in with Chaffinch and Goldfinch.
It was a lot colder this morning and still damp! We stopped off for a quick coffee and warm through, then headed to Lynford. On arrival at Lynford we had good views of Treecreeper and Nuthatch, there was a flock of tits, mainly Long-tailed Tit, with a few Blue and Great, no Marsh with this group, but 2-3 Goldcrest.
Round by the lake, single Redpoll and Crossbill flew over but didn’t land. There was several mobile Siskin groups, but eventually one settled and we got nice views of them feeding in alders. The lake held a nice group of Gadwall which were showing well at close quarters. A walk around the paddocks was fairly quiet, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and another distant flyover Crossbill.
We headed back towards the car park and stopped for a Crossbill that was calling, it was located at the top of one of the pines, but didn’t hang around for long and took to the air just before we secure scope views!
As we headed back another tit flock arrived and this time we had good views of a Marsh Tit, plus another Treecreeper. We picnic lunched in the car parking area and typically a flock of c15 Crossbills flew over but again refused to drop into full view!
The day was neatly rounded off with a final stop when amazingly given a small window of sunshine within ten minutes we had a super immature Goshawk above the trees, it disappeared but then returned ten minutes later hunting low through the trees and scattering a whole load of Wooodpigeon. Also 2 Sparrowhawk and 5+ Buzzard at the same stop.
A nice late autumn tour with 108 species recorded in slightly challenging winds at times!