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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Norfolk birding (13 Viewers)

Where are these Freshmarshes? I am coming up for a few days tomorrow night and at some point over the weekend will be in the Blakeney area.

John

wardy11 said:
Had a great time Birding today - 1st, the 1st winter Red-Backed Shrike at Blakeney Freshes was showing really well so I managed to take some photo's of that. Then I called at Titchwell RSPB on the way home and a superb juv Little Stint was so close to the path so again, a great photo opportunity.
Click to expand...
 
The Fresh Marsh is in the area of the harbour - just head for the quay, then go along the path to the harbour and keep walking through the car park and you'll come to a sign which leads onto the marshes. There is a path that circles the marshes for around 3 miles in total and it's a circular route.
 
Thanks for that. Hopefully the Shrike will stay until Saturday.

John

wardy11 said:
The Fresh Marsh is in the area of the harbour - just head for the quay, then go along the path to the harbour and keep walking through the car park and you'll come to a sign which leads onto the marshes. There is a path that circles the marshes for around 3 miles in total and it's a circular route.
Click to expand...
 
wardy11 said:
The Fresh Marsh is in the area of the harbour - just head for the quay, then go along the path to the harbour and keep walking through the car park and you'll come to a sign which leads onto the marshes. There is a path that circles the marshes for around 3 miles in total and it's a circular route.
Click to expand...

At the moment there is a lot of work being done on the new seawall, so some areas are closed off. For the Shrike come back out of the carpark, turn left and after about 100 yds there is a footpath on the left. Walk along this till you get to the pool 600yds+, the Shrike is in the dead trees on the north edge of the pool. The footpath is covered in metal plates to allow the diggers access, be careful how you tread.

John
 
Thanks John

john miller said:
At the moment there is a lot of work being done on the new seawall, so some areas are closed off. For the Shrike come back out of the carpark, turn left and after about 100 yds there is a footpath on the left. Walk along this till you get to the pool 600yds+, the Shrike is in the dead trees on the north edge of the pool. The footpath is covered in metal plates to allow the diggers access, be careful how you tread.

John
Click to expand...
 
A quick seawatch at Cley from 9.45 to 11.15 this morning produced:-

22 Brent Geese
1 s/p black-throated diver
2 s/p red-throated divers plus 1 w/p bird
Med gull
Kittiwake
Fulmar
2 pom skuas
2 arctic skuas
5 guillemots
c200 common scoters
c500 wigeon
c300 teal
hobby taking small wader off beach and flying with it onto reserve
A few passing grey plovers, knot, curlews, dunlin. sanderling, oystercatchers
Small passage of swallows
3 wheatears

On the scrape, highlights included

4 little stints
3 curlew sands
6 greenshanks
30 ruff
4 barwits
50 blackwits
most of the waders were then flushed by two imm hobbies beating the place up.

Gordon
 
Titchwell September 11th

Today's highlights

Greenshank - 14 on fresh marsh
Spotted redshank - 4 on fresh marsh
Culew sandpiper - 3 juvs on fresh marsh
Spoonbill - 3 on fresh marsh
Whinchat - 1 near beach
Stonechat - 2 near beach
Wheatear - 2 near beach

Paul
 
Thank you very much! I'm proud to hear that from Norfolk birders (from Suffolk too, of course)!

There is also a video "Alaska Wildlife HD" (8 mins), but here are virtually no Alaska birders here on birdforum:
http://youtu.be/JbfPQPqlb7o
You can see there, why the American name of the "Grey Phalarope" is "Red Phalarope"...

Enjoy!
 
East Hills produced very little this afternoon in the way of migrants, but had a fabulous and unusual sighting of 16 Grey Herons on the sands distantly! Eddie M. however had several migrants before I got out there, including 2 Pied Flys, 1 Spot Fly and a Redstart.

Full update on my blog.

Penny:girl:
 
Penny, I see in your blog you had trouble with quicksand on your way out across the saltings today on the North coast. Thats normal after big tides and these patches tend to move about with each tide. It seems when there has been a big tide it lifts the sand and when the tide drops quick sand can form. Usually you can get out with a little trouble , but not always unaided. I got caught out a few years ago when i crossed a normaly safe crossing place and as I sunk above my waist I had to lay down and try and belly out which I did with the help of a couple of friends. I am not sure I could had got out if I had been alone. With experiance you can usualy reconise the bad spots , but its not a place for the inexperianced and if the tide is running potentialy very dangerious.

The quicksand is far less common on neap tides but can sometimes be found. Anyone venturing across any of the creeks should always be very wary.
 
Spot on John, although it was deep down on the poolside of that tree with its back to us on Saturday.

Smallish movement of birds with at least 6 Whinchat and a couple of Wheatear.

John

john miller said:
At the moment there is a lot of work being done on the new seawall, so some areas are closed off. For the Shrike come back out of the carpark, turn left and after about 100 yds there is a footpath on the left. Walk along this till you get to the pool 600yds+, the Shrike is in the dead trees on the north edge of the pool. The footpath is covered in metal plates to allow the diggers access, be careful how you tread.

John
Click to expand...
 
Titchwell September 15th

Today's highlights

Pied flycatcher - 1 at Thornham Point
Spotted flycatcher - 2 at Thornham Point
Whinchat - 1 on fresh marsh
Curlew sandpiper - 1 on fresh marsh
Little stint - 1 on fresh marsh
Brambling - 1 on East Trail
Spotted redshank - 5 on fresh marsh

Paul
 
Yesterday's Great Grey Shrike on Scolt was the 2nd earliest ever in Norfolk, from what I can tell. One at Holme on 11–12 Sept 1989 remains in 1st place, with the Burnham Overy dunes bird on 16 Sept 2006 now relegated to 3rd. Does anyone know of any earlier dates (e.g. pre-1970)?

Edit: Andy Stoddart has come up trumps with a bird on Blakeney Point on 10 Sep 1952, so it looks like we'll have to settle for a bronze medal!

Some back-of-an-envelope calculations put 3 October as the average first (autumn) date for Great Grey Shrike 1970–2013.

Phonescoped dross of the shrike attached, plus an only marginally better 300mm DSLR effort of the runner-up (contrary to the order of importance Penny gives these two species in her blog – it's tough to beat a Great Grey Shrike, especially in the first half of September, whilst the east coast is groaning under the weight of Red-breasted Flycatchers ;) ).
 

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