It's been a while again!

 With our daughters wedding, catching covid and lots of other things going on, I've had very little time to sort out our photos and do any posts here. Yesterday I managed to go through a months worth of photos, not just wildlife a lot of other stuff too.

I'll start with a few photos from the garden, whilst we were isolating in the second week of June. We should have been going to Lesvos, but went down with covid 4 days before we were due to go and took 11 days before we were clear. We were so looking forward to it, two weeks of Greek food and birding too, it would have been fantastic. Hey ho!

So back to the garden; A family of Blue tits stayed with us for a quite a while:

There's alwats a Woodpigen about and

we had quite a few Starlings visit.

In addition we had Siskin, Coal Tit and House Sparrow. In addition there was always the ever present Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Rook, Jackdaw, Crow and Magpie flying around and the occasional Swifts too!

There are more posts to come of post covid afternoons out.

The Annual Birding Visit to Norfolk - Part 1

The weekend of Storm Ciara we were booked to go to Norfolk, we drove down on the Saturday in glorious weather calling in at Salthouse before going to our digs to find the Waxwing that had been showing well there. We got there about 3pm and had a good a good wander along with a few other birders, but there was no sign, although looking at twitter etc. there were some nice photos of it from earlier in the day! It must have settled down somewhere to get out of the impending storm, which in retrospect we should have done the following day!

On the Sunday all the reserves were shut. So we ended up mooching along the coast and as a result, and a long story I got covered in mud and we nearly had the door of the car blown off, so we will consign that day to the rubbish heap as far as birding is concerned.

Monday was different story, we checked with the RSPB at Titchwell and headed there, it was still windy but nothing like Sunday. The birds didn't seem to agree though and the lagoons were very sparsely populated, with most birds staying in or near the reeds. So not many photos for what was mostly a dull day:
Blue Tit,

 Little Grebe,

 Avocet,

 Teal

 and Knot

We only clocked up 32 species for the day there. We did pop to Holkam in the off chance that some remaining Pink-footed Geese would turn up to roost, but again with the high winds and snow! The only geese seen were Brents and Greylag. Although a Barn Owl and the Marsh Harriers did brighten the evening up for us.

Tuesday saw us go to Snettisham for the day, again it was very windy, but a lot brighter. Cutting across country from Wells where we were staying, we saw plenty of Hare, which was very nice;

and Red-Legged partridge in good numbers;

At Snettisham it was very windy to say the least, so the hide windows facing the sea remain firmly shut! The pools on the other side of the hides were quite busy though. With plenty of Goldeneye;

Wigeon,

 Lapwing,

Greylag,

 Great Crested Grebe,

 Turnstone,

 Little Grebe,

 Cormorant,  Mute Swan, Tufted Duck and Shoveler. Two Peregrines put in an appearance that got the smaller Wildfowl excited;

There were brief visits by a pair of Egyptian Geese and a Little Egret that helped the day along nicely.

On the Seaward side on the mud were plenty of Shelduck, Knot, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Ringed Plover.
Grey Plover

and Redshank.

Most were much too distant to photograph. The sunset though was worth photographing:

This post is I think long enough for starters I will do the rest tomorrow!

A Week in Sometimes Wet and Windy Norfolk - The Rest!

To round up the rest of our birding in Norfolk, on a particularly wet and windy day, we birded by travelling the coast road and popping down tracks, around harbours and estuaries, using the car as a hide and weather permitting getting out to have a look around.  We call this "Having a Mooch Around". Usually on these days I don't take many photos as the weather is against getting anything decent. I think we end up doing this at least once when we go to Norfolk in the winter.

This time was no different, I think this is the only one I took on that day at Morston Quay.

We visited Brancaster Staithe, Stiffkey Fen, Morston Quay, Cley (beach roads, and just used the visitor centre for the facilities.), Salthouses, Blakeney and of course Wells. Nothing out of the ordinary was seen, plenty of common waders and winter ducks, although we did add a Barnacle Goose to the list.

At Salthouse Beach we did see a large raft of 'black' ducks out on the sea, but even asking a chap with a scope they were to far to identify.

I should mention that we were aware of the Pallas's Warbler at Wells Woods and did have a look but never found it, even though the area it was in was only 100 yards from the lodge we were staying in! C'est la Vie!

The only other thing to add was our compulsory visit to the Hawk & Owl Trust at the Sculthorpe Moor Reserve. We always go and never mind paying the entrance fee (now £5) as we love the place. Great hides and usually an abundance of woodland birds, plus Marsh Harriers and Owls. Having said that it was unusually quiet, the first hide produce very little, just Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Pheasant, Blackbird and Dunnock. Normally here there is an abundance of Tits, sometimes Brambling, even Red-legged Partridge, but not this time.

As we walk from there through the woods to the next hide overlooking the reed beds, we always hope to see Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Wren and Great-spotted Woodpeckers, this time not one!

The second hide was the same very little about, just some Blue and Great Tit, but we did add a Bullfinch.

After coffee and running out of patience we left for hide number three, picking up Marsh Tit on the way.

The third hide did prove better with plenty of activity on the woodland feeders and even a bit of dappled sunshine:
Chaffinch,

 Brambling,

 Great Spotted Woodpecker,

 Collared Dove,

 Blue Tit,

 tons of Goldfinch, Marsh Tit

 and Coal Tit

We never fail to enjoy Sculthorpe, give it a go.

Back to Upton Warren

So as promised in an earlier post we went back to Upton, although it took us longer than expected with weather, decorating and a few other things getting in the way.

Our main objective was to see the Redshank chicks at the Flashes and the mission was accomplished with one in particular being quite bold and showing well,

the other two were much more skittish and only showed briefly as did the parents.

The two reported Egyptian Geese at the Sailing Pool were also quite accommodating,

It was nice to see the Avocets doing so well, with the youngsters really growing fast and now totally independent, although we didn't count them there are a reported 25 juveniles almost ready to depart.

The Black-headed Gulls had become a bit quieter than our last visit 4 weeks ago, like the Avocets, the chicks are looking very grown up now, although as with the Avocets there are still a few really young chicks about. The majority though were taking a well earned rest,

Elsewhere at the Flashes there were plenty of Lapwing, Canada Geese, 3 Greenshank, a few Common Sandpiper and a pair of Little Ringed Plover brooding I think 4 eggs, but wasn't sure, only had a quick look whilst the parents did a change over. I was surprised to see a Moorhen with whatt must be a second brood though:

We decided to pop over to the Moors Pools to finish off the afternoon in the vain hope of Otters or Kingfisher, as usual neither showed for us this time out. Tina did catch a glimpse of a Water Rail, which I missed taking some poor photos of a Little Grebe family, I just couldn't get the light right with the shine on the water,

to make up up for it we did get some great views of both Reed and Sedge Warbler, normally they don't hang around long enough to either to get a proper look or even a photograph, you normally just see them flit in the reeds or zoom around a disappear down into the reeds as soon as they land.
So here are a few pics, I wish they had been closer but then a photographer is never satisfied!
Reed Warbler:

Sedge Warbler:

We had the pleasure of a Tufted Duck creche sail by, a single adult female with circa 30 chicks in tow, I was surprised that the Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls nearby ignored them, especially with a few of the chicks wandering off from the main group, they would have made a nice snack for a Gull.
A few of the 30.

With chicks to feed the Common Terns were busy fishing and occasionally came close enough for us to have a better look,

There was plenty of other bird activity and sometimes it's nice to give the more common birds a spotlight:
A shy Great Tit,

 Dunnock,

 Herring Gull,

 Blue Tit,

 Cygnets,

 Reed Bunting,

 and Bullfinch

So a lovely peaceful afternoon at the Warren, there weren't many other birders about, that can be really nice sometimes, just to sit and enjoy with no other distractions. We stayed about three and a half hours and totalled 42 species, not a huge number but really enjoyable.