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.

RSPB Middleton Lakes

We took a trip up over Birmingham to Middleton lakes on Thursday. It's been a a long while since we have been and on the way home we remembered why! But more of that later.

It was a surprisingly lovely day weather wise, the sun stayed out most of the afternoon. As I said it's been a while since we have been and it was nice to see the work done on the paths, in past visits we could have done with waders, but hopefully with the work done not any more.

So onto some birding....

The walk through the woodlands out to the lakes was lovely with the star being a Nuthatch collecting seed from posts and railings that someone had put out;

Chaffinch and Robin, plus Coal, Blue, Great and Lon-tailed Tit also turned up.
Couldn't resist a picture of a Tree Rat...

as it was being quite 'cute'.

We continued out over the canal to the lakes and walked around anti-clockwise, deciding not to cross the bridge to Dosthill. So up to the hide or as the RSPB insist on calling it 'The Lookout'. There was plenty of Coot, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Cormorant and Canada Geese about.

From the hide, we added Wigeon, Teal, Little Egret, Little Grebe, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Pheasant, a solitary Goosander, Shoveler,

plenty of Black-headed Gulls,

and a large flock of Linnet swooping around.

 The highlight was a Scaup that showed in a channel with some Tufties, before disappearing behind a bank, sadly I wasn't quick enough to get my camera on it.

After a late lunch in the hide we proceeded around to the Jubilee Wetlands where we saw a Shelduck to add to our list and had great fun watching the Greylag Geese coming in to roost:
Final approach, undercarriage down,

 landing aborted going around again,

 trying again,

 then the next lot doing a circuit.

After waiting in the fading light to see if any starlings showed up for a mini murmuration, (about 30 did turn up briefly) we brought our afternoons tally up to 42 with a Collared Dove.

So back to the car as it got dark, then for the supposedly 35 minute ride home that ended up taking 2 hours!! Now we remembered why we don't go to Middleton in the winter!

Rainham Marshes

It's been a fair while since I have posted, indeed it's a fair while since we have done any birding, for a number of reasons that I won't go into here!

Anyway last weekend saw us head down to London to look after and run the Tap Room at our sons brewer in Bemondsey (see the link on the home page) As we had to pick up the keys on Thursday as he was going away that left us a free day on the Friday, so we toddled off to RSPB Rainham.

The weather was glorious, unlike the Saturday on the Beer Mile!

Also this was the first outing since my camera and 500mm lens were both repaired, it was actually pretty quiet out on the reserve and the reported Pectoral Sandpiper from earlier in the week was no longer about, just plenty of Collared Dove and Hous Sparrows to start with, although this Little Grebe showed nicely a little further along the circular walk:

We had been told that the Bearded Tits, or should I call then Bearded Reedlings now, had been showing near the Rifle Butts, we bumped into a chap who had seen them a few minutes earlier, but no promises! Then a kind South African gentleman took us to where he had seen them and within a couple of minutes there they were:

We stayed for about thirty minutes watching their antics, taking time for a coffee of course. I have quite a few photos that I will add to my Flickr albums shortly.

So we walked on to the large hide overlooking the pools, there wasn't a great deal about apart from the Teal;

We had a late lunch there before continuing around the reserve, watching the Lapwing;

and admiring the Marsh Frogs;

So back to the centre where some Starling and Collared Dove showed well and a final cuppa before heading back to Bow.

Not a huge list but well worthwhile:

Bearded Tit

Black-headed Gull

Blue Tit

Buzzard

Carrion Crow

Collared Dove

Cormorant

Goldfinch

Great Tit

Greater Canada Goose

Grey Heron

Greylag Goose

House Sparrow

Jay

Kestrel

Lapwing

Little Egret

Little Grebe

Long-tailed Tit

Magpie

Mallard

Moorhen

Mute Swan

Pheasant

Shelduck

Shoveler

Starling

Teal

Woodpigeon

Norfolk Day 2 - Sculthorpe Moor & RSPB Snettisham

The weather wasn't looking great for the Sunday so we made a plan to go to the Hawk and Owl Trust at Sculthorpe Moor and hopefully if the weather improved as per the forecast head up to Snettisham to see the Pink Foots come in.

As we headed out of the visitor centre at Sculthorpe a Sparrowhawk surprised us by trying to take one of the Tits of the feeders, sadly for it, it ended in failure, but was great for us to see. Of course it all happened to quickly for me to even lift my camera up!

The woods and hides gave us some respite from the constant drizzle and we had a great few hours adding woodland species to our Norfolk list:
Pheasant,

 Greenfinch,

 Robin,

 Marsh Tit,

 Brambling,

 Collared Dove,

 Bullfinch,

 Nuthatch,

 Blackbird,

 Great Tit,

 Marsh Tit,

 Brambling.

I can't recommend Sculthorpe Moor enough, the reserve is fantastic, with lovely walks and great hides.

The weather did improve so we set off for Snettisham, about half an hour away and went out to the hide overlooking both the lagoons and sea, again its a brilliant place.

The lagoons were full of Wigeon, Lapwings, Cormorant, Greylags, Canada Geese, Goldeneye, Little Grebe and Mallard. While the muddy shore held, Dunlin, Redshank, Godwit, Shelduck, Knot, Lapwing, Oystercatcher and a host of other waders unidentifiable in the fading light and also because of the distance out to sea.

At around 4.15, the Pink Foots arrived on mass, thousands upon thousands coming in and settling down on the mud flats for the night. A truly awesome sight.

Rainham Marshes RSPB

After a great night out with our Son for his birthday we called in at Rainham, as we usually do on our way back to the Black Country time permitting. We spent about three hours doing the circular walk around the reserve.

As you might expect at this time of year it's very quiet all the birds have done their bit, the youngsters have fledged and the parents are recovering and hiding away as much as possible, getting ready to migrate or stocking up for the winter. Yes, only 139 days to Christmas as I write this!

Anyway I think the must abundant species on the reserve at the moment are Goldfinch, Starling and Coot! There were large flocks of Goldfinch and Starling zooming around the reserve, so they are the exception to what I have just said! I have just realised despite the large numbers I never got around to taking any snaps of them!

Upon further scanning there were quite a large number of Lapwings about including what looked like a fair amount of juveniles, so breeding for them on the reserve must have gone well.

Other birds showing well were Grey Heron and Little Egret:

So with birds apart from Coots and this Little Grebe

not posing these Marsh Frogs obliged:

Then of course there were plenty of Butterflies about, these two posed in front of the hide,
Comma:

 Peacock:

We also saw Speckled Wood, Common Blue, Large White (of course!) and others which we have no idea what they are!

We finished off sitting outside the visitor centre in glorious sunshine with a cup of coffee followed by an ice-cream, where these two Collared Doves posed:

Our Rainham day list:
Black-headed Gull
Black-tailed Godwit
Blue Tit
Carrion Crow
Collared Dove
Coot
Cormorant
Gadwall
Goldfinch
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Grey Heron
Greylag Goose
Herring Gull
Hobby
House Sparrow
Kestrel
Lapwing
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Magpie
Mallard
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Pochard
Reed Warbler
Shelduck
Shoveler
Snipe
Starling
Swallow
Woodpigeon
Wren