Fife Ness Again!

 We took another drive up to Fife Ness last week in the hope of seeing some of the rarer birds that had blown in (Red-flanked Blue tail, Black redstart, Richard's Pipit etc.) We actually found none of them!!

Never mind, we still had a lovely time, doing a bit of sea watching, although that was quiet too!

Se here's a few photo's from some things we did see;

A Rock Pipit (one of four) on a rock!

Surfing Seals,

Plenty of Eider passing through,

Some Brent Geese (our first of the year!) 

Oystercatchers of course,

and quite a few Curlew about

Plus Lesser Black-backed Gull and a Cormorant.

Also seen were Red-throated Diver, Goosander, Shag and Gannet.

Usual small birds around the old airfield plus some Grey Partridge in one of the fields. Lovely Day!

The Annual Birding Visit to Norfolk - Part 2

We had a decent weather day on the Wednesday the wind had died down just a little, so we parked up on Lady Anne's Drive at Holkam with the view to spend the day. We first walked to see the Shore Larks and Snow Buntings, but the birds were very mobile in the wind and we only had a fleeting glimpse of one Shore Lark and perhaps groups of Snow Bunting zooming around, but never staying put. There were also Meadow Pipits, Linnet and Skylark, but nothing close enough for decent photos so I won't bother putting any on here.

On the way back we stopped at the benches overlooking the dunes at the top of the stairs down to the beach, where some Brent Geese offered some nice views;

Oh I forgot as we left the car a Grey Partridge was busily feeding on the adjacent field;

After the Shore Lark expedition we walked down to the Jordan Hide to see what was about and we had a bit of a Geese fest! But started with a nice Kestrel;

 that later flew in front of the hide,

as did this Mute Swan.

 Plenty of Greylag Geese of course,

 some Barnacle Geese

 and some White-fronted Geese

 as well as Egyptian and Pink-footed Geese.
The Wells Rough-legged Buzzard put in an appearance and decided to roost up miles away, that is it in the tree honest! Plus a Muntjac in the grass.

Ducks (mainly Wigeon) up in a panic

 as one of the many Marsh Harriers pay a visit!

A Thoroughly good day.

The weather wasn't kind to us the following day, the wind just didn't let up, and along with that came a fair bit of rain, so we elected for another mooch day, trawling some nice spots we know along the coast, we started with Brancaster Staithe, it is one of my favourite drop ins because you never know what you are going to find, on this occasion though with the wind being so high, the birds were mostly sheltering elsewhere, but the Turnstones are a hardy bunch and came quite close to the car;

We travelled along the coast, not seeing a huge variety of birds, but did get one or two;
A Bar-tailed Godwit,

 Grey Plover,

 Little Egret

 and Redshank

were the few that were photographable (is that a word?) A Greenshank was seen at Morston Quay, then a huge gathering of Pied Wagtail at dusk at Blakeney Harbour, we are guessing at least 200, one even landed on the windscreen wiper, then looked at us in amazement (not quite sure what an amazed Wagtail looks like!) through the windscreen before flying off.

Last day took us to Sculthorpe more for a nice cold wander around the reserve;
Snowdrops,

 Bullfinch,

 Pheasant,

 Bank Vole,

 Long-tailed Tit,

 Greenfinch,

 Coal Tit

 Goldfinch,

 Brambling,

 Nuthatch

 and another Brambling.

So that concludes our Norfolk trip, with 86 species seen, someway behind some of our visits, but not bad considering the weather.

Norfolk - Days 3 & 4

The weather on the Monday was dreadful heavy rain and windy all day, not pleasant for walking, so on occasions like this we resort to using the car as a hide. There are plenty of places on the coast where you can get close to the birds in the car.

We were staying in Brancaster Staithe, so we started at the harbour there, there is always plenty going on and just a few feet from the car,
Curlew,

 Redshank,

 Grey Plover,

 Turnstone.

From Brancaster we moved on to Mortson Quay, to find much of the same.

We decided to head down to Cley and explore the roads that go up to the shore, but there was little about, however we did pick up our first Stonechat of the week;

We took the opportunity to go past Cley and on to Salthouses, we picked up a Peregrine hunting always nice to see.

So not much else to report for Day 3.

Day 4 saw us drop into Brancastre Staithe again to start the day, we then travelled on to Thornham Marshes from which we walked to Holme Dunes to see what was about. At Thornham we started with a Skylark grubbing around in the mud

and small flocks of Starling being very busy shifting around the grasses, one of which contained an interesting leucistic member:

The walk provided the chance for a few nice photos, Redshank,

 Brent Geese,

 a Black-headed Gull still in summer plumage, playing Billy-no-mates and keeping clear of the other Gulls,

 plenty of Curlew about,

 and some lovely Bar-tailed Godwit

 and Grey Plover.

The distant near shoreline held a lot of Gulls, with a few Great-blacl Backed Gulls and the far shore had plenty of Waders, but to distant to identify

After Thornham we had another try at Holkham for Geese but again they weren't playing!