RSPB Titchwell (1 Viewer)

[Evan Atkinson]

Last Saturday, me and my dad visited RSPB Titchwell. The weather was quite nice, although the wind picked up rather quickly and became quite annoying at times. Anyway, on the journey, we passed a buzzard trying to channel it's inner kestrel as it hovered literally a metre above the ground. A few minutes later, an actual kestrel was spotted, and this set the stage for quite a few different raptors, including a red kite, a buzzard and 2 more kestrels. Other birds spotted included a mute swan, and a pheasant. As we got nearer to the reserve, about 10 minutes from it, a large flock of about 50-60 lapwings cleared the hill and landed in the field we just past. Another pheasant was spotted as well. A red breasted flycatcher was reported at the site for 3 days straight, but we didn't see it. As we entered, a few birds were on the feeder, including a chaffinch and a great tit of note. As we came to the first hide, a bar tailed godwit flew infront of me. I tried for some pictures but most pictures blurred sadly. Either way it was still a lifer so was very pleased either way. The first scrape had nothing too much of interest apart from most winter migrant ducks. We suspect that there were some young teal, definitely a year or less. The next scrape was much better, with a flock of about 20 dunlin flitting around the left side of the scrape. We decided to have a look at the saltwater marsh side, since the freshwater side was very busy and my dad is still cautious about covid 🤷‍♂️. Anyway, only 3 birds were on the marsh that we could see of, and they were all redshank. We left the hide and were pointed by another birder at a female stonechat sat on a thistle. A lifer for me but due to my lens not being able to get a decent picture (its a 75-300mm) the bird looked very small in the pictures. After that, we went to the beach, which for me was the exciting part. The beach produced 3 lifers for me, and those being brent geese, curlew, and sanderling. I got some nice pictures of the sanderlings, and later on after we left, I got some very nice pictures of a curlew on the saltwater marsh. Curlews are my favourite bird by far so was extremely happy to get some decent pictures of one. On the way back, another raptor fest insued, with 3 kestrels, a sprawk, 2 buzzards and another red kite.

Lifers for me on that day include:
Sanderling
Brent Geese
Curlew
Stonechat (female)
Bar-tailed godwit

Birds of note:
Chaffinch
Great tit
Dunlin
Shelduck
Teal
Shoveler
Little Egret
Oystercatcher
Black headed gull
Redshank
Mallard
Herring gull
Cormorant

I'll post some pictures when I get home.