Having seen many reports of excellent birds in Norfolk, we
went slightly mad and headed up there for the day.It’s not really a day trip for us, so
possibly was a little silly!It also
turned out that all the cool birds have moved on and we didn’t get anything
spectacular, although we did have an excellent day out.
Nuthatch
It started at Lyford Arboretum, looking for the Two-barred
Crossbill.It didn’t show for us, but we
did add Crossbill to our year list and got a few shots of a couple of very
sweet Nuthatch.I was on top Treecreeper
form, with Stuart jokingly asking me to find him one and 3 seconds later, one
zooming onto the tree next to us.I am a
Treecreeper goddess.(Although it has
been suspected that I carry a wind up one and stick it to trees when people
aren’t looking).There was a tree filled
with Goldcrest and Coal Tit which kept distracting from looking for the
Crossbill and a rather large flock of Jackdaw flew overhead, filling the sky
with a black cloud briefly.
Wheatear
We hadn’t heard of Holme
Bird Observatory before, but it was recommended as a good place to pop
along to.On the way, I managed to persuade
Stuart to take a quick detour into the biggest beer shop in the country, Beers of Europe.It.Was.Amazing.I bought far too much interesting beer and
could have bought many bottles more.Definitely recommended.
Small Tortoiseshell
Holme was a delight and provided a new, if distant lifer,
Arctic Skua.We also saw flocks and
flocks of Sandwich Tern, which we somehow hadn’t managed to pick up this year
yet.I think they’re a great little Tern
with a bit of attitude, but Stuart finds them boring.Boo.A
lone Shelduck flew past and Sanderling were doing their little jogging down on
the shore.When we returned to the
office, we found out that a Wryneck had been seen on the adjacent NWT site, but
this unfortunately proved a fruitless search.It did turn up a Lesser Whitethroat, Redstart and Wheatear though, so
not all was lost!
Black-tailed Godwit
It was then back on the road to Titchwell for lunch and a
wander.We added a lot of the more
common species such as Coot, Canada Goose and Mallard to boost our day
list.A great memory of the trip there
were 13 Spoonbill flying over in formation – gorgeous.We had another Little Stint incident –
‘Stuart, is that a Little Stint.’ ‘No, no!You’re rubbish at waders!’ 3 minutes later, a guy wanders over to point
out a Little Stint.No prizes for
guessing which bird it was!That was
also a year lister and a lovely little bird.
Lapwing
A great day, although not as bountiful as expected.Certainly won’t be doing a day trip to
Norfolk again in a long while unless something super special arrives!
Trip list: 75 Year list: 181 Lifers of year list: 23
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