Set off bright and early and started off at a gloomy & eerie Thornham Harbour. Here there had been a sizable flock on Twite reliably sticking to the general area around the car park. This is a bird I have probably not seen for well over 10 years, maybe more so was super keen to see them.
It wasn't too long before I was enjoying some great views of around 50 birds feeding on seed heads a short distance from the car. They were quite flighty and would frequently fly around and actually spent a fair bit of time all perched up in a nearby tree.
A female Merlin sat on a post out on the saltmarsh showed well but distantly before disappearing. It soon returned, hunting the same area and also had a pretty entertaining tustle with a Sparrowhawk before settling on another distant post. A big immature female Peregrine also cruised past before landing on the beach out by Thornham Point. Also present were several vocal Rock Pipit feeding around the boats, the usual common waders and several DB Brent Geese.
Next up was Burnham Overy Dunes which, too be honest would be where I would probably spend the rest of the day! Main target here were the two reported Rough Legged Buzzard, another bird I hadn't caught up with for a number of years.
There were tonnes of birds alongside the path down to the dunes, particularly DB Brent Geese & Golden Plovers. Oddities here included what appeared to be a Black Brant type hybrid & a really cool looking Golden Plover with a pure white head (shocking phone-scoped photo below!).
Other birds noted further along included a flyover 1st-winter drake Goosander (not a common bird here), several Stonechat, a fly-by Spotted Redshank, a pair of tustling Peregrine, several hunting Marsh Harrier and numerous skeins of Pink Foots heading over to Holkham.
Scanning the posts I came across what was almost certainly the two Rough Legs but were just too distant so I moved on towards the west end of Holkham Pines to get a closer look. A closer inspection revealed that one of the birds was indeed a smashing Rough Legged Buzzard, however the other turned out to be a light-phase Common Buzzard (hopefully this wasn't being reported as a Rough Leg!).
While watching the RLB, a fairly large brown bird through my scope view. Quickly panning left it proved to a Bittern flying from one patch of boggy vegetation to another! Not often you'll get Rough Legged Buzzard and Bittern in the same scope view!!
After having my fill I moved onto the pines and down onto Holkham beach to have a look at the sea. The drake Surf Scoter that had been there for 2-3 weeks had not been reported for a few days and I assumed it had moved on. I was though going to give it a bloody good scan all the same. Despite the calm and mild weather, the sea was pretty wild and it was frankly bloody difficult to get a good look at the bobbing heads on the water! Anyways in around an hour & a half I mustered at least 5 Velvet Scoter among the 200 or so Common Scoter, around 5 fly-by Red Throated Diver, a brief Slav Grebe, a female Eider, a juvenile Gannet and a small and rather diverse group of ducks consisting of a female Tufted Duck, 5 Teal, 2 Shoveler and a probable female Pintail! There was also a small of flock of busy Sanderling bombing up and down the beach, always a great sight!
The walk back in the sun was nice without turning up anything new other than a vocal Chiffchaff at the west end of the pines, as well as the Rough Leg & Common Buzzard performing distantly again out on the marsh.
The light was now fading so I headed back to Thornham to look for raptors before dusk but sadly saw nothing more however the stunning sunset was a cracking finish to a pretty good day out.
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