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!!
Well worth the early start. Difficult to do but always pays off. Nice post.
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