November 10th Norfolk Exclusive day Tour

We started the day with seawatching off Cley coastguards, we arrived with a misty murk, not ideal! Though an immediate and very nice surprise was a juvenile plumaged Black Guillemot close inshore and about the first bird I dropped my scope on to, fortunately it wasn’t too far out so we had quite good views. it drifted East but not before a few others arrived and managed to see it.

There were also several Red-throated Divers, there was a good passage offshore with several groups of Common Scoter passed West, Pintail, Teal, Shoveler, Gadwall, Goldeneye & Tufted Duck all moving West. A real nice surprise was a close drake Goosander and then a little later we located the imm drake Long-tailed Duck just off the wreck and 2-3 Little Gulls feeding distantly further out. Also a small group of Snow Buntings flew past us overhead.

Just behind us on the Eyefield there was c350 Dark-bellied Brents, a careful look through and we found the Pale-bellied Brent Goose – present with the others for the last few days.

We visited the hides, late morning and there was a good selection of Teal, Wigeon, 1-2 Pintail and a few Black-tailed Godwit, Dunlin and 1-2 Snipe. The highlight was a Water Pipit that dropped in calling and landed on one of the islands. We had lunch in the Visitor centre and then headed off to Stiffkey Greens, good we arrived early, just on time for a superb male Hen Harrier, shortly followed by a Merlin that perched up for a while, rounded off nicely with a ringtail Hen Harrier & 4 Marsh harriers.