Brecks & the coast

I'd been plotting a day in Norfolk for a couple of weeks and decided on Sunday 17/02, to make a visit to the Brecks and then on to the North Norfolk coast.

To make the most of the day, I set off mega early, arriving at Lynford Arboretum, near Thetford at about 07:40am. 



It was nice and peaceful as I set off on a walk looking for finches! A peek at the feeding station area from the wooden gate revealed a bit of a treat in the shape of a flighty swarm of about 40 Brambling. I'd have been happy with one or two so a proper flock was really cool to see. To be honest, I can't remember seeing this many for...ever!



I walked further down to the Paddocks area in search of Hawfinches. Another birder immediately pointed out a couple straight away. I moved a little further down the path to get levels with the trees in the paddock. I stationed myself here and enjoyed them coming and going for a good half an hour. They were quite hard to count because they were moving around quite a bit, but I'm sure there were at least 20. You can make out 9 in the photo below!



I took a more long-winded route back to the car, through the area I have previously enjoyed Firecrest, however no luck with these, nor any hoped-for Crossbills. Still, the amount of Hawfinch & Brambling made it a brilliant start to my day!

I planned to head straight up to the coast however 10 minutes along the road I saw the signpost to Cockley Cley. I decided to have a crack at finding the site for Goshawk, particularly as it was a bright clear day. I soon found quite a number of birders parked up looking across at the nearby woods and so found a space and joined them. There were 20 or so Brambling in nearby bushes, coming down to feed in adjacent fields, while 2-3 Buzzards floated up out of the woods. 

Luckily I didn't have to wait all that long for the main prize, about 20 minutes in fact, picking out a monstrous female Goshawk cruising into view and flying straight towards us. She then began circling higher over the woods, affording good scope views before dropping down out of sight. I waited another 15-20 minutes in the hope of more views but other then a very brief view of it or another over the treetops, I saw nothing else. If I waited a little longer, I'm sure I would've been treated to further views as the sun continued to warm up, however I was keen to get on to the coast. So slighting reluctantly, on I went.

Next stop was Holkham, which being such a gorgeous day, I knew would be heaving with people, however I grinned and beared it! Having paid for parking, I made my way in the direction of the beach, towards the area east of Holkham Gap, in search of Snow Bunting and Shore Lark.

It didn't take me too long to get views of at least 5 Shore Lark feeding away in vegetation just high enough to hide them, however every now and then, they would pop their head up, or move into some of the barer patches.



Further on, c20 Snow Bunting were feeding quite close to the path in the roped off area, set aside for feeding passerines. Again, like the larks, they were a little obstructed by the vegetation, however as is typical with 'Snobs', they were completely unperturbed by everyone walking past and happily fed just feet away.



I wandered down to the beach for a scan, although the sea was surprisingly quiet with not a single Diver or rarer Grebe. Best were a pair of Common Scoter, a few Red-Breasted Merganser and several Great Crested Grebe...that was it!

BUT, a couple of flying blobs caught my attention, moving away from me, east along the coast down towards Wells. Two adult Common Cranes! A real surprise and a very welcome sight too!





I then got back to the car, not overly surprised to now see Lady Anne's Drive full with cars right up to the A149! I had a quick scan through a close by flock of Dark-Bellied Brent Geese and picked out a few Marsh Harrier and Red Kite floating about. 



Before leaving the Holkham area, I pulled in off the A149 to have a look for White-Fronted Geese, in one of their usual spots on the freshmarsh. This paid off with around 40 birds, plus the added bonus in the very same area, of 5 sleeping Spoonbills that I'd seen had been reported earlier in the day. A well worth stop!





Before finishing at Titchwell, I decided to firstly drive slightly further west to Thornham to look for the reliable wintering flock of Twite around the car park. The sun was out, however the wind had really began to whip up from the south. I had a thorough search around the general area, although sadly I drew a blank, just finding several Rock Pipit and Redshanks.

Just as I began walking back to the car, I heard that distinctive Twitey twang call and a small, buzzing flock circled round a couple of times, before settling down in front of me. That was lucky! Some fantastic close up scope views were had of 12 birds in total, leaving me suitably happy!





On then to Titchwell, with my main hope of a few decent bits on the sea. I did contemplate doing the sea back at Thornham, walking up to the E side of Holme, however I thought I may see a bit more on the Titchwell reserve. As it turned out, the Holme option might have been the better one as the freshmarsh water levels were pretty high and there were surprisingly small numbers of wildfowl and waders there in general!

Anyways, I still had fabulous views of a feeding Water Rail, in the ditch just to the right of the path on the walk up, which I somehow managed to get a largely unobstructed photo of through all the branches. In fact it came out surprisingly well, considering I was shooting at ISO1600! 





A Barn Owl showed distantly hunting the Saltmarsh for a short while, while there were at least 15-20 Med Gulls around the freshmarsh. The tide was in and had pushed a few waders off the beach onto the nearest pools. Nothing in any great number but the usual good variety - Barwits, Grey Plovers, Oysteractcher, Curlew, Turnstone, Knot & Dunlin.



This winter, the sea has produced a decent variety of seaduck, grebes & divers along this part of the coast. So it was my luck then, that very little was showing at all, despite a solid hour of scanning. A few Great Crested Grebe, Red Breasted Merganser and Goldeneye were all that was to show for my efforts. A bit of a shame but you can't win 'em all! I could hardly complain, as any day seeing Hawfinches, Goshawk, lots of Brambling, Spoonbills, Snow Bunting, Shore Lark, Twite etc etc is not to be sniffed at!!

A day in Cider country

On Sunday 03/02, Gareth and I headed down to the Somerset Levels, to catch up with our good old mate Dan Watson, who would show us around for the day.

It was an early, flipping freezing start to the day, with the car reading -8 as I drove out of Brackley! Having met up with Gareth at his house in Banbury, we departed westwards at about 06:20am.

Having met up with Dan, we began our birding at his patch of Cheddar Reservoir in crisp, still and sunny conditions. We soon were watching the long-staying juvenile Great Northern Diver at a bit of a distance, while the 1w Scaup was out in front of us, eventually coming pretty close, allowing some fab views. Also seen were a drake Red-Crested Pochard, good numbers of Pochard, a drake Mandarin & two very distant Peregrines perched on a radio mast, up on the nearby hills.





Having had our fill of Cheddar (yes pun intended), we hopped back in the car and a shortish drive to the levels, to Allermore Drove. Our first two Cattle Egrets were seen here, together with a flock of 6 Great White Egrets, a few Stonechat and good numbers of Snipe



Nearby Tadham had at least 1 further Great White Egret, plus a few more Stonechat and a small flock of 8 Golden Plover. This area has some really nice habitat, with the vast expanses of wet meadows and dykes and it'd be nice to come back in the spring, with the sounds of breeding waders ringing in the air.



We moved on, noting a male Marsh Harrier and a further 3 Cattle Egret on the way to Ham Wall & Shapwick Heath. Before exploring the reserves, we drove out to the area SE of the Ham Wall reserve, where we got to see around 30 Cattle Egret littering the roadside fields.







We carried on to the far end of the Ham Wall Reserve, where Dan promised us Water Pipit on a smallish area of new workings. A short walk along the old railway line and in no time at all, we were enjoying a couple of Water Pipit, albeit looking right into bright sunshine, hampering our view. A Green Sandpiper was also feeding in the same area. These were the first Water Pipits I'd seen for years and years and it was good to re-familiarise myself with some!

On then to Shapwick Heath for a wander down to Noah Hide. 2-3 Great White Egrets showed well on the walk down. There were lots of passerines feeding close to Noah Hide, including a handful of Lesser Redpoll & Siskin, as well as 1-2 Chiffchaff.







From the hide we got lovely views of a male Kingfisher, contently sat on nearby twigs, occasionally dropping down to the water in an attempt to catch a fish.





There was also a distant pair of Whooper Swan, stacks and stacks of Wigeon, c40 Pintail, a couple more Great White Egret and 2 Marsh Harrier.

We did think about going back to Tadham to look for raptors, but instead decided to walk across the road, onto the Ham Wall reserve to watch the Starling roost, renowned for the 100s of thousands of Starling that come in for dusk.

There were tonnes of people about, to see the spectacle and the path was more like walking up London's Oxford Street on a busy Xmas shopping day, than a tranquil nature reserve. BUT, having said that, it was great to see so many people getting interested in wildlife.

On the walk up to the view points, numerous Water Rails could be heard squealing from the reedbeds, as well as the odd loud burst from a Cetti's Warbler or two. The Starlings slowly began appearing over our heads, in several vast groups and in fact, we were quite lucky not to get pooed on with the sound of quite a few splats around us as they went over!



The majority had gone over by the time we reached the 2nd viewpoint and had gone straight down into the reedbed, but it was still pretty cool seeing such enormous flocks of them overhead. 

The spectacle inevitably lured in a few raptors with a male(?) Peregrine making a couple of stoops, as well as a Sparrowhawk and a couple of Marsh Harriers.

It was then pretty much dark and so we made our way back to the car, got Dan home to Axebridge and then hit the road back to Banbury. Heck of a good day's birding with of course an excellent guide and company as per!