[Keith Dickinson]

4.55am…rain and drizzle as Mark, FrankieB (Frank), Schiffornis (Andy) and I set off on our trip to Norfolk. We made good time on the journey down from Leeds and were travelling through Lincs. on the A17 when the weather decided to take a turn for the worst. Heavier rain and darker clouds, not the best weather for a day’s birding.
We arrived at our destination, Titchwell RSPB Reserve at about 7.30am and the rain seemed to have eased a bit. The path from the car park allowed me to demonstrate my lack of knowledge when I confidently identified the alarm call of a blackcap as a wren, thankfully a real wren was seen shortly after. As we turned the path from the visitor centre to take the walk to the sea, we saw swifts and swallows hawking low over the fields to the west of the path, not such a good omen those low flying swifts.
After leaving the shelter of the trees and getting onto the open path, the drizzle revealed itself to be a spatter of high velocity water drops as the wind speed had increased since leaving the car. Instead of making our way the kilometre to the beach we decided on taking shelter in the first hide (Island Hide).
We were not expecting many birds to be visible in the high wind but were pleased to see several summer plumaged little gull, along with some second year birds. Sedge warbler, avocet and shoveler were easily seen, but there were some small waders, across the water on mud, which proved to be a bit difficult to id through the closed windows. Andy opened one of the windows and took up a position with his scope, slightly to one side of the window, so as to avoid the full force of the wind. Soon we were able to add ringed plover, turnstone, dunlin and redshank to our tally. After a short time the weather seemed to lighten so we decided to continue along to the beach, we got as far as the second hide (Parrinder Hide) before giving up and taking shelter again.
From this hide we were able to open the windows without facing into the wind so were able to see the birds a bit better, and little stint, common tern, curlew sandpiper and linnet all were ticked very quickly. A rather odd wader had us stumped for a while, neither small enough for a stint, nor big enough for a sandpiper, we eventually reached the decision that it was a sanderling in mid-moult to its summer plumage. A good selection of the regular gulls and ducks were also ticked off, and then the target bird for Mark was seen, as a male marsh harrier took to the air and gave us a display of effortless flying, tackling the high wind with barely a flick of its primaries.
By mid morning hunger and cold ‘forced’ us to retreat to the comfort of the Reserve snack bar for warm drinks and sandwiches, and suitably refreshed we took advantage of a lull in the weather to make tracks for the sea. By the time we got there the wind had risen again and it was blowing from the north-east so almost straight into our faces. Andy and I set our scopes up and soon had several dozens of common scoter in our view, you can tell how bad the sea was, as whole flocks of 20 or more birds were disappearing and reappearing in the swell. Whilst watching the ducks I caught sight of a small stiff-winged bird skimming the waves crests, ’Shearwater’ I yelled and sure enough there were quite a few of them but the visibility, their distance was such that, as none of us were dedicated sea-watchers, we couldn’t get beyond shearwater spp as an id. The weather proved too much and we rather quickly left the beach and headed back for more warm refreshment. On the way we had good views of a great tit family, several fledglings and the parent birds making their way through a willow tree. A bit further on a chiffchaff was seen, feeding a fledgling high up in another tree, good spot Andy.
After a second warm drink we decided to move on to Cley as a Temminck’s stint was reported to be on the reserve. So off we set, into more bad weather, the new car park and vistor centre at Cley are very nice and a great improvement on the old. We found out that the Temminck’s stint had been seen from the north hide, so we went to the beach car park as that was closer to the hide. Close as it was, we were still thoroughly soaked when we got to the hide. Thankfully the wind was coming from behind the hide so no worries about opening any windows, and we were able to scan the whole scrape. Ringed plovers and dunlin were quickly ticked and 3 small waders that had us guessing for a while, was one of them the Temminck’s or were they all little stints? We couldn’t get a good enough view of the birds for quite a time, they just wouldn’t approach the hide, staying on mud at the far edge of the scrape. Then one of the birds took flight and as it turned away from us I got a good view of its tail feathers and the wholly white outer tail feathers clinched it, at last Temminck’s stint was added to the list. Other birds that we found from this hide were a nice drake pintail and a couple of little terns.
After a couple of hours in the hide and with the weather not improving at all we eventually admitted defeat, we weren’t going to be able to find the pectoral sandpiper that had also been seen from the hide.
So we left the hide and slowly plodded back to the car, with the wind ramming drops of water through the tiniest of gaps and soaking most of us to the skin in places. Just by the car park we noticed more birds out to sea, but this time only a very short way out so well within our range. We were able to see a solitary fulmar but good numbers of gannets and Manx shearwaters hurtling past in the wind. Talking to a sensible chap who had parked his car quite cannily and was able to sea watch from within his vehicle, it turned out that there was a very large movement of birds happening as he had counted well over a hundred Manx shearwater and the same number of gannets almost in only an hour’s watching.
Wet but moderately happy we set off on the journey back, the weather improving all the time until near Fosdyke in Lincolnshire, Andy was able to add hobby and mistle thrush to the day’s list to bring the final total of species to 82, which, given the weather conditions I feel was a pretty good tally. Sadly as I was driving at the time I didn’t see the hobby, which would have been a life tick for me or the mistle thrush so this time I missed 2 birds, rather than just one as I did the last time I took a car to Norfolk.

[Keith Dickinson]

Species list for the trip was.

Mute swan
Greylag goose
Canada goose
Egyptian goose
Shelduck
Gadwall
Teal
Mallard
Pintail
Shoveler
Pochard
Tufted duck
Common scoter
Ruddy duck
Pheasant
Little grebe
Fulmar
Manx shearwater
Gannet
Cormorant
Little egret
Grey heron
Marsh harrier
Kestrel
Hobby
Moorhen
Coot
Avocet
Ringed plover
Lapwing
Sanderling
Little stint
Temminck's stint
Curlew sandpiper
Dunlin
Black-tailed godwit
Bar-tailed godwit
Whimbrel
Curlew
Redshank
Common sandpiper
Turnstone
Little gull
Black-headed gull
Common gull
Lesser black-backed gull
Herring gull
Great black-backed gull
Little tern
Common tern
Woodpigeon
Collared dove
Swift
Great spotted woodpecker
Sky lark
Sand martin
Swallow
House martin
Meadow pipit
Pied wagtail
Dunnock
Robin
Blackbird
Mistle thrush
Sedge warbler
Reed warbler
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Blue tit
Great tit
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Carrion crow
Starling
House sparrow
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Linnet
Yellowhammer
Reed bunting

[Marcus Conway - ebirder]

Nice report Keigth - thanks.
Must have been a wet day not to record Willow Warbler, Whitethroat or Long Tailed Tit. Think you can consider another 15 species easy if it had been sunny so 82 is good in my opinion. Temmincks is a cracking little wader too so nice work on that front.
I hope I can make it next time.

[Mark43]

Great report Keith.Enjoyed reading it as i do most Norfolk reports.

Managed 136 species in a week in Norfolk earlier this month with a mix of weather so 82 in a day with those conditions is pretty good.