We set off Sunday morning (11.03.12) with stunning bright sunshine. Destination was the Dun Cow in Salthouse for a proper yum roast. Of course the stunning weather brought out every man and his dog and instead of taking around 2 and a half hours to get there, it was more like 3 and a quarter, with tonnes of sunseekers and fogies heading for sunny Norfolk!
The roast was, as predicted bang on. Now being full of juicy roast beef and Guinness it was time for a bit of a walk, so we parked up and headed along the east bank at Cley. The light was stunning and Arnold's Marsh in particular was well lit with its usual nice selection of waders with several Knot, Bar tailed and Black Tailed Godwit, Avocets, a few Dunlin, Ruff, Curlew and tonnes of Dark Bellied Brent Geese. On closer inspection, the Geese flock also contained 2-3 Pale Bellied Brents too which are the first I've seen in a fair old while.
There wasn't really anything terribly unusual there but it was such a lush evening I didn't really care too much to be honest! I did have a great view of a male Kestrel devouring dinner at close quarters along the shingle bank between the East Bank and North Hide. The sea was so still and it held very little birdlife other than a distant Great Crested Grebe and around 50 Wigeon.
We walked all the way down to Eye Field and the coastguards thinking there was a loo. Woops turned out to be no loo (straight into Em's badbooks!). There was a few Geese in the Eye field with 50-100 Brents with at least 1 Pale Bellied and also around 20 White Fronted Geese too.
The sunset was a real stunner and the light was great to again watch some of the the waders on offer on Arnold's Marsh with several Avocets at quite close range. As we walked back to the car, a singing Cetti's Warbler and a couple of calling Bearded Tits were noted, as well as a couple of cream crown Marsh Harriers over the vast reedbed.
After that it was off to our cracking little hotel, the Red Lion Hotel in Cromer. The next day we went to Norwich and had a hardcore shop, something I hadn't done in flippin' aaaages! Was a mint day, so nice to spend some quality time with Ems on the old anniversary!
Tuesday (13.03) from our hotel balcony I managed to rustle up a lone Fulmar heading West in the early morning sea mist. We popped over to Overstrand to see my Grandparents grave before heading to Salthouse beach car park to look for the flock of Snow Bunting that had been there in recent days. On arrival, around 20 were circling over the car park and after a while they showed really nicely either on the shingle bank or even feeding by a puddle right in the middle of the car park itself.
Also on show were a couple of distant Red Throated Divers, handfuls of both Common Scoter & Wigeon offshore and 2-3 Seal sp. showing very close in shore at times with one lingering very close to several fishermen and their rods to their disapproval! Once I'd soaked up all there was to see, it was off to Cley visitor centre for the use of the toilets! A quick scan of the reserve from the centre revealed all the expected birds plus a nice Spoonbill which was, suprise suprise asleep! It did wake up a couple of times to reveal that big bill before dozing off again!
Next we went on to Holkham to have a good stroll along the beach. Apparently there were 4 Shore Lark knocking around just east of the gap however despite an extensive search I couldn't track them down.
We went around to the shoreline and there was a decent number of things on the sea. There were several Red Breasted Mergansers on show with a couple off males showing off their bizarre head throwing display. I soon found a nice Red Necked Grebe followed by several Common Scoter, a lone Slavonian Grebe, the rather unusual sight of a pair of Great Crested Grebe displaying on the sea and a couple Red Throated Divers. After that we headed back to the car.
Before heading off to our hotel at Titchwell I had a little look east and west of Lady Anne's Drive. There was a single Grey Partridge, a nice year tick in one of the fields just east of the drive and a walk down to Washington Hide revealed the odd Siskin and around 7 White Fronted Geese.
We then drove West to Titchwell and checked in the Titchwell Manor Hotel...well nice! Had our delish afternoon tea before heading out to the reserve at Titchwell around 4 o'clock, a short drive down the road.
The weather was pretty dam dull and miserable. On arrival, several hundred Pink Footed Geese went over northwest, presumably heading to roost. The reserve had plenty of birds, however nothing too unusual. Several Spotted Redshank were about the best I could muster. The sea provided a total of 9 Long tailed duck (4 drakes & 5 females), one Slavonian Grebe, several Red Breasted Mergansers and plenty of Goldeneye around, as there was when I was here last time with Dave.
The next day (14.03) I must have been mad, but I was up at 05:40am and headed straight for the Titchwell reserve again. Was well nice to have the whole reserve to myself, barely saw a sole between 05:50am and 08:15am. Walking along the main path, several Siskins and the odd Lesser Redpoll were on show, though no sign of the Coues' Arctic Redpoll that was around. It would be nice to have seen it again, however having seen it with Dave the previous week I'd get over it if I failed to come across it.
Further down, a Barn Owl was hunting actually along the path for a minute or so before heading over towards the saltmarsh. The reserve held all of what I'd seen the previous day. The sea again held the 9 Long Tailed Duck, several Red Breasted Mergansers and plenty of Goldeneye all in the same area.
I was a little pushed for time to get back to the hotel for breakfast, though I spent a good half an hour looking around the visitor centre for the Arctic Poll. Had some great views again of around 5 or so Lesser Redpoll and a total of around 50 Siskins but sadly no sign.
So that was the end of a cracking relaxing few days in Norfolk!
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