Norfolk! Unfortunately not quite as cool as the last super birding weekend in Norfolk, but still fun. We headed up early morning on the Saturday and completely missed the turning for our first target, so headed on to Wolferton to see if we could spot Mr
Golden Pheasant. When we turned into the road we were in for a surprise as it's usually just us sat there in the layby, but the layby was empty and around 10 cars were pulled up in tight formation around a small area where the bird was usually seen. I was amazed to see that he was actually out on the road, but the moment we turned the engine off, every single car door opened and people poured out, only a few metres away from the poor guy who then hot footed it back into the trees. I was really disappointed in the people who had decided that was a good idea and we left straight away.
|
Golden Pheasant |
|
Brambling |
The first target we had missed the turning to had been the Pallid Harrier at Flitcham and of course we discovered upon arriving we had missed it by 15 minutes. We hung around for an hour, delighted by the 70+
Brambling feeding in the field in front of us and a first ever view of a perched
Merlin, but eventually gave up and went for a walk around Titchwell. This is always a lovely walk and added a couple to the year list, including
Long-tailed Tit,
Grey Plover and
Avocet. A brief stop at Choseley Barns produced no Rough-legged Buzzard but one
Grey Partridge pretending he was with a group of about 10
Red-legged Partridge. We stayed the night in a wonderful
B&B in Holt we had previously stayed in and enjoyed a catch up with the delightful
Andy Stoddart.
|
Skylark |
It was back to Flitcham early the next morning and we had heard the bird had roosted at Roydon Harrier roost, so we were a bit worried it might change its pattern. As we drove along the lane to the field it was mainly seen over, a harrier flew over and perched in a tree to the left. We both yelled PALLID and sat and watched it for a while. However, we hadn't actually seen a Pallid Harrier outside of photos before, so when we got round to the field we checked with the other birders and my photo was in fact of a Hen Harrier. Darnit. We watched the skies about the field for an hour and a half, with very little action, apart from a few low flying visits from the Merlin. We were beginning to think we were never going to see the bird when it swooped across the field putting on a marvellous show! We watched it for a while (which involved a good deal of exercise as we ran from field to field and up and down the road to catch sight of it). Having seen what was definitely the
Pallid Harrier, we revisited my perched photo from 2 hours earlier and it was realised that it was in fact the same bird. Doh! I'm happy we didn't realise and stayed to watch it however, as it was lovely to see in flight and about ten minutes later an actual
Hen Harrier joined it and they flew together, a wonderful chance to compare the two birds.
|
Pallid Harrier |
|
Pallid Harrier |
|
Pallid Harrier and Hen Harrier |
We then skipped up to Choseley Barns where we saw a flock of
Golden Plover (a bird we somehow seem to frequently miss!) and a happily singing
Skylark. We popped into Holkham Hall for a look at the
Scaup and were also rewarded with a close low flying
Barn Owl (I saw 8 throughout that day!). The last site of the day before we headed back to London was at Blakeney Marsh, looking for the Lapland Bunting. We didn't see them, but had my second ever sighting of
Twite (although at the time all the people we met were definitely trying to squint and turn my absolutely horrendous photo into the buntings!). Great weekend all in all, and back up there in two weeks for a goose and crane extravaganza!
|
Pretty awful photo but...Twite |
Year list: 134
Lifers this year: 9