Norfolk birding (17 Viewers)

both have declined but Bullfinches are still pretty numerous and i reakon if you watch any patch of rough ground with lots of hedgerows and cover regularly you'll find them - worth familarising yourself with the call as its quite soft and can go unnoticed. If you want to attract them to your garden they love the buds on cherry and plum blossom. They always seem to be birds where if you specifically go out looking for them you won't see them - that why they are a nightmare to get on bird races!

Really good place to see Yellowhammer is Choseley Drying Barns near Titchwell - you also get Corn Bunting there.

Thanks for the tips Pomskua. I've got a line of wild plum (bullace) trees where I park my car at home, which attract all sorts of birds. I will keep a look out next time they are in blossom. Some of my earliest memories are listening to Yellowhammers at Pretty Corner near Sheringham. At least their call is really easy to recognise.

Ron

A late afternoon walk at Dersingham Bog in the murk was very quiet but I did see the Great Grey Shrike, two Green Woodpeckers, a Meadow Pipit and a Roe Deer close to the main track.

Sue

nigelt said:

Thanks, Matt - I think you mentioned the Cley roost a week or two back. So I went along there one evening and arrived at the precise moment the fun stopped and they were dropping into the reeds! I'll be checking them out again, but it sounded as if Penny's roost might be a bit larger.

Nigel

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Just got back from Cley. There must have been many thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of starlings. Initially they gathered on the elder bushes and in the reeds just the other side of the road from the visitor centre car park. A number of them repeatedly landed on the coast road, flying up every time a car passed. Large flocks were ranging widely over the whole expanse of the marshes, often passing in opposite directions. Only once did a number of them form into one of those amazing fluid, constantly changing elliptical shapes, sometimes dense black, sometimes almost invisible pale grey, which to me is the real highlight of the show. As the light faded the groups in the elders flew up, joining many others which had lifted from the reeds, again ranged widely from between the Cley beach road, out towards the coastal shingle bank, way off over the East Bank, and then back to alight again in the reeds opposite the visitor centre. Magic! I shall be going back often!

Nigel

nigelt said:

Just got back from Cley. There must have been many thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of starlings. Initially they gathered on the elder bushes and in the reeds just the other side of the road from the visitor centre car park.

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Glad you enjoyed it, their numbers seem to grow higher each time I visit so will be interesting to see at which point they peak.

A word of caution when looking up if ever they fly directly over your head, it's inevitable that with so many numbers at least a few of them will be ''evacuating'' their bowels at any one given moment!!

Stiffkey Campsite carpark 2pm

Coastal Footpath west - Warham Greens

2 Great White Egrets from the carpark at 2.00pm (seconds after I arrive, new bird for me and another year tick!:t: I have never walked along this path, so it was very exciting, especially when there were tons of birds flitting about in the bushes - loads of blackbirds, robins, chaffinches. A nice brambling sitting in hawthorn, 24 Fieldfares, 200+ Wood Pigeons in a ploughed field. Goldcrests, blue tits, robins everywhere, parties of long tailed tits, brent and pinkfeet on marshes. Goldfinches feeding on thistles, 3 grey partridges, blackbirds flying in all directions, reed buntings, greenfinches. A nice Stonchat sat on a gorse bush, 2 Marsh Harriers, kestrel over marshes towards East Hills, a Grey Wagtail flew over, 2 carrian crows, barn owl, Great White Egret again at 4pm, loads of little egrets. On the way back bumped into a couple of birders (one BF member P.D.), one who had seen rough leg buzzard, hen harrier and merlin (all of these I missed!). Not too far from carpark I turned round sharpish as I could hear a knocking noise - I couldn't work out what it was! when suddenly I saw movement in a small tree - a Great Spotted Woodpecker (female) !!, I don't why but I hadn't expected to see one here.

Back at carpark, a barn owl came in really close. Left for home 5.45pm. Fantastic afternoon.

Best Wishes Penny:girl:

Ilya Maclean said:

Cheers. It has been easterlies the last few days and conditions have been right further east for Saturday to have a lot of potential for Sib stuff too.

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Let's hope so. It's been really hard work lately to find anything even half decent. A few Bramblings, Purple Sands, Laps and the usual geese and Cranes. Hardly a Siskin or Redpoll over since Tuesday. Though i guess it's been a fairly good autumn so far...

Good to meet Pom, Matt and Steve at Palling/Eccles yesterday. Keep at it chaps!

Best of luck to those out searching for their own stuff this weekend. Fingers crossed. :t:

Edit: a few good recent finds in east Norfolk that didn't make the headlines - Pallas's Warbler, Great White Egret, Sabs Gull, Ross' Goose, Lesser Snow Goose, Serin and Steppe Lesser 'throat. Nice work!

Tim

Good to meet Pom, Matt and Steve at Palling/Eccles yesterday. Keep at it chaps!

Tim[/QUOTE]

Cheers Tim, think i'll start your neck of the wood sunday then cycle up to Sheringham - those fields we went went to the other day look primed for something decent.

As you say i'm surprised these easterlies havent produced much this week and the pager's quite quiet this morning.

I know if i mention any target species this weekend, i won't see it so i'm not saying a thing!

Just arrived back from Shetland and full trip report now on my website.

Cheers,

pomskua said:

I know if i mention any target species this weekend, i won't see it so i'm not saying a thing!

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Had better not say the ''P'' word then

Good luck!!

Matt

Had good views of the two Great-white Egrets at Wells this afternoon in flight and on the deck o and a few commoner migrants between here and Warham. Also had a Buzzard sp. drop into the pines at 4:30pm but never saw the tail... :C

Shame the Olive-backed Pipit was found so late, was already at Burnham by this stage but hopefully it will still be around tommorow.

More informative report of the afternoon now on my blog.

Cheers,

Fantastic Day's Birding

Holkham and Warham Greens

Arrived Holkham - Lady Anne's Drive at 7.40am

Pinkfeets were swirling round the marshes, fantastic sight. Walked up to Holkham Gap, for quick view of very high tide, 3 grey wagtails flew over. Walked back and started to walk along pines, Marsh Harrier being mobbed by crows, Roe Deer ran across path by the Salt Hole and a Water Rail called, blue tit, coal tit, parties of long tailed tits, goldcrests, lots of jays I noticed, 1st winter stonechat sitting on fence wire, green woodpecker calling, bullfinch calling, sparrowhawk flew over pines. Not that many birds about really and there was me hoping for a Pallas's or something similiarly good! Got as far as dunes and sat on edge of first hollow on right with sycamore tree and sat and had cup of tea and my mid morning snack, well it was only 9.30, but it felt like 11am to me! Several blackbirds flying in, 1 brambling right over my head. A couple of birding friends now joined me (who couldn't get up as early as me) and we had a good walk through the dunes hoping to flush something, 8 siskins went over and several meadow pipits, 2 redwings, but not alot else here. Made our way back along the pines and saw the bullfinch that I heard earlier!, 1 heron, greenfinch and a nice Spotted Flycatcher! sitting on hawthorn, which was a nice surprise! (we noticed later it came up on pager as a race of Spot fly). At 12.30pm we saw the Lesser White Fronted Goose amongst some White Fronted Geese on the marsh not far from the cross tracks (also bumped into BF's Ilya Maclean, nice to meet you). Little grebe in the 'Salt hole'. Got back to Lady Anne's Drive to a very different scene - when I arrived this morning there were about 5 other cars there, now the drive looked full!!! and tons of people, children and dogs flying in all directions, it looked like a bl**dy bank holiday!!! We all had a quick sandwich and got out of there fast!

My two friends had not seen the Great White Egrets, so I decided to join them and do the same walk I did yesterday afternoon (see yesterday's post). We arrived at Stiffkey Camp carpark at 2.30pm. I am so glad I did, as I saw most of the birds I missed yesterday! at 2.40pm had brilliant views of male Hen Harrier! 2 rock pipits went over, brents on the marsh, loads of little egrets. My friend's pager went off to say Rough Legged Buzzard was in dune near East Hills, so we scanned about and one of my friends spotted it (3.15pm) - don't know how he did, it was a tiny brown blob! When the blob decided to fly, we could then see the white rump etc etc and had brilliant, although distant views of Rough Legged Buzzard! (Thank you to ever put out info on the pagers). We also saw another Hen Harrier (ringtail) and a marsh harrier. We then stood on a high bank opposite one of the Warham tracks to view 1 Great White Egret (3.45pm). We then met up with Connor (welcome back from Shetland!) who had walked from Wells. There was a nice Redpoll near the pond, 2 fieldfares went over, 6 greenfinches and a red leg partridge. As we got back to the carpark, one of my friend's pagers went off (5.10pm) to say Olive Backed Pipit at The Dell, Wells!!!!!!!!! This was very frustrating and decided not to go as light was fading fast, never mind!!! (Wells carpark will be busy tomorrow morning good luck anyone going to see it)

Best Wishes Penny:girl:

A walk around Nar valley Fisheries produced one Brambling, five Bulfinchesin one flight party (northern?) and a Kingfisher. At Narford Lake there was one Mediterranean Gulland one partially albino Black-headed Gull that looked stunningly white in the gloom amongst hundreds of other gulls.
Sue

Olive-backed reported again Wells 7:15am in the dell c. 200 yrds west of marshy area south of birches.

Cheers,

Connor

Biked to Happisburgh and back this morning

3 Snow Buntings
3 Purple Sands
1 Black Redstart

After deliberation we are happy with Monday's bird at Waxham as a Radde's. An alternative isn't really on. That's two for our little area this year.

atb
Tim

For Sale

22 Norfolk Bird Club bulletins (# 21-38, 40, 43, 44, 51).

PM, if interested. Thanks.

Had no luck with the OBP at Wells today (got there late, after 1300) - A nice G W egret flew low over the Dell area heading towards Holkham at 1355. I presumed this was one of the Wells/Stiffkey birds but it looks like it may be a different bird. Was anyone watching the two egrets late this afternoon who can confirm this?. The Sacred ibis was also watched circling high over the Holkham area heading slowly East (seen distantly from Wells) - scanned for the R L Buzzard but didn't see it. It looks like that is still there too! I thought it had gone

Out today briefly (Trimingham cliff top wood) and saw nothing, got wet and decided to go home.

Out all of yesterday. Walked from Wells, where I thoroughly searched the Dell for over an hour, for the 4th time in a month, but spectacularly failed to see anything of note and had to leave it to my friend James Gilroy, to stroll along on spec a few hours later for the first time in ages and promptly find the Olive-backed Pipit.

Walked to Burnham Overy Dunes and found nothing of note. Did see the Lesser White-front and Penny (nice to see you too) at Holkham. Looking very domesticated (the goose, not Penny as it was in with greylags, but I did hear it arrived in with the whitefronts, and I seem to recall that it has less white on the head (not fully moulted to adult plumage?) than the bird that's been knocking around all summer. Also saw the spot fly. Interesting bird, being so late. Immediately made me wonder about eastern forms and took a few quick notes

Probably haven't looked at enough spot flys in my life to know precisely how unusual, but a few things stood out: very heavy streaking for a spot fly (although this is probably because I'm used to seeing adults or obvious juv birds and the Holkham bird is probably a 1st winter). Very long-winged, with long primary projection: at least six primaries visable and each extending quite a distance beyond the last - wing tips level with about half way down tail. Nice clearly marked pale fringes to the tertials and wing coverts - not particularly whiter than on a usual spot fly (which they're supposed to be on neumanni), but possibly a bit thicker. As I say, haven't looked as closely as I ought to have at normal spot flys, so a bit of an impression than gospel, but I wonder if anybody else who'd seen the bird had any feelings on its odd appearance?

Biked from Bacton to Cromer yesterday - pretty quiet although mellow and tranquil and nice to be avoiding the masses, from the pager yesterday, at one point it looked like the entire Norfolk population of birders had descended on Holkham!

Had a very dark Northern Wheatear + another extremely tame bird, also good no's of Laps in coastal fields. At Trimingham had a skulking bunting in the cliff edge that shoulda been a mega until it started calling and revealed itself as a Reed. Checked every bit of cover from Mundesley to Overstrand and although didn't find much, area has terrific potential and will fit it in as much as possible when i'm up there.

-amazing James Gilroy found the Pipit - don't know how he does it - he beat me to the Booted Warbler that was on the Point this spring!

trying to remain positive about the wind direction this week - westerlies forcast for the whole week - possible good chance for a Yank - repeat of B&W warbler anyone!!