Norfolk Bank Holiday birding

Both myself and Gareth B. arranged to head over to Norfolk for a couple of days ahead of the August Bank Holiday and catch up with our good Norfolk-based birding mate Johnny. 

The days leading up to our arrival saw a good, classic east coast fall of Pied Flys, Redstarts, Wrynecks etc, so while the winds had switched to SW by Saturday 29/08, there would surely be some good birding to be enjoyed and certainly better birding than back home!

We decided to kick about the Cley area for the Saturday 29/08 at least, with waders, passerines and the sea all in play. We met up at Cley Beach car park and started at North Hide. There were a decent cluster of chats on the way over, with up to 10 Wheatear and 4 Whinchats along the fences, as well as several Yellow Wags.

North Scrape was pretty good with an adult Little Gull, at least 3 juv Curlew Sandpiper, juv Little Stint, juv Ruff, 2 Greenshank, 3 Common Sands, a good number of Dunlin, 1 juv LRP and a couple of Swift overhead- a solid start! 4 Grey Herons headed E offshore, as well as a/the adult Little Gull and a juv Med Gull. Singles of Sanderling and Pintail were on the nearby sea pool.

We then all agreed a stroll up Blakeney Point, to at least the Hood was worth it, to see if we could dig something out. Wryneck was reported in that general area, so that could at least prove a good sweetener if we couldn't find anything ourselves.

We were soon onto a couple of clusters of Wheatear, a Willow Warbler and a Chiffchaff. The big channel held a few waders including moulting Barwit & Grey Plover, as well as a calling Whimbrel, Ringed Plover and plenty of Redshank and Curlew. We had a good bash around the Hood, encountering a Whinchat and a lovely Tree Pipit that showed nicely for a brief while.

Soonafter, a/the Wryneck flew up out of some Sueda close to Johnny. After a couple of bang average flight views, I went on to get some decent views of it as it went about it's business, showing a surprising willingness to perch out in the open, rather than diving deep into the Sueda.

It was now getting a bit drizzly and so we decided to head back towards coastguards along the beach, rather than press on to the plantation. In a bit of light drizzle, this proved a nice move with a striking juvenile Caspian Gull on the beach, together with a juv Caspiany thing, most likely of mixed parentage. A couple of Black Terns were offshore too, joining the melee of gulls and Sandwich / Common Terns. The number of Common Terns in the area were unusually high, with apparently as many as 300 in recent days! 

We got back to the car and headed round to the visitor centre for a coffee before finishing the day in Dauke's Hide for the evening, overlooking Pat's Pool & Simmonds. It proved to be a very enjoyable hour and a half or so. Highlights included c13 Little Stint (1 adult, the rest juvs), 2 Wood Sandpiper, 1 Spotted Redshank, at least 2 juv Caspian Gulls and an adult Yellow-Legged Gull.

A fairly leisurely start on Sunday, having completed over 20,000 steps the previous day! It started well as I was finally able to enjoy my first ever Wasp Spider - this one had been hanging out in Johnny's Norwich garden for quite a while! Really hadn't anticipated how big a female Wasp Spider is - an absolute wopper of a spider and just stunning too. Even better than I expected!

We had plotted to head across to see the Black-Winged Kite, but in the end decided on heading back to Cley and giving the sea a go as the wind was anticpiated to swing a bit NW.

In reality the sea wasn't great - though nice to see both Bonxie and Arctic Skua, as well as a distant, possible Pom Skua. A few Gannets, a couple of flyby juv Caspian Gull, a few groups of Teal, Knot, Dunlin and Grey Heron was pretty much it! North Scrape produced 1 juv Curlew Sandpiper, 4+ juv Little Stint, 1 juv Wood Sandpiper, a distant Hobby, 9 Spoonbills flying into Pat's Pool, plenty of hirundines overhead and generally the same stuff as previous.

We wandered on to the East Bank and it was good to see a couple of very busy Wall butterflies. Arnold's Marsh held a few Spoonbill, but not not a lot else, however we did get good views of a couple of Hobby overhead. The walk back to the car added a kettle of 12 Buzzards drifting overhead. At this point Johnny headed home and Gareth and I popped round to the East Bank car park and Walsey Hills before we headed home. A few commoner species were added to the weekend list, but nothing spectacular. The sun did draw out a few butterlflies including several more Wall, Small Heath, Small Copper and Common Blue. Gareth also picked out a nice Willow Emerald Damselfly. That drew to a close a fun couple of days catching up and enjoying some rather more eventful birding than back home!!