Norfolk birding (6 Viewers)

[NoSpringChicken]

I've just spotted my first two Swifts from the kitchen window in Gorleston. A very welcome sight.

Ron

 

[Penny Clarke]

I popped along to look at the dotterel today, they were very distant so not very satisfying... however the stacks of yellowhammers and corn butings at the barns along with a nice pair of turtle dove made it well worth the trip.

Hi Peter

Wonderful pictures:t: Yes I enjoyed watching those last night, they looked so vibrant in the evening sunshine, although I didn't see any turtle doves!

Best Wishes Penny:girl:

 

[Songkhran]

Great day yesterday at Holkham despite being very cold, rainy and windy considering its mid spring.

Started at Lady Anne's Drive, a Greenshank was then followed by a male Redstart that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Scrapes from Washington Hide are looking good for waders with more pools than usual but only able to see the usual suspects but good to see Lapwing chicks and Avocets on nests.

Next up a wild slog around Burnham Overy, 7 Wheatears were dotted around and 5 Little Tern were feeding at Gun Hill. 7 Ring Ouzel obviously not enjoying the weather were huddled together in one bush and popped out one after the other as i walked by. A late evening scan over the freshmarsh revealed the Rough-legged Buzzard hunting and with a final scan i located a Black Tern swooping down over a distant pool.

However maybe i was just lost in reflecting on a rather fine day, but there's casual and then there's pomskua casual and somehow managed to miss the last bus of the day and had a wet trudge back to Wells as my reward.

 

[Songkhran]

I'm off (somewhat reluctantly) for my annual pilgrimage to the South Coast to catch the Pom migration this weekend, but planning to do some raptor watching from Incleborough Hill next week, its hard work just doing it with one pair of eyes as its easy to miss stuff going through and because there are long periods where nothing happens can be a bit zzzzz.

If anyones up for meeting up it could be good (no promises!) - in 4 visits this spring its produced 4 Red Kites and a Black-eared (or hybrid) Kite and we are now approaching peak time for Honeys, Monties. Osprey and rarer stuff.

PM me if anyone fancies improving their 1000 yard stare.

 

[Songkhran]

Great views of the Richard's Pipit last night at Kelling had it perched up on a bramble and giving very close views, was able to see the hindclaw which was enormous -velociraptoresque, curling round to reveal a turquoise point, able to seperate bird from Blyths on this feature alone.

Directions where sketchy so if anyones interested best viewing place is to walk to beach from Kelling Water Meadows then take path to your right immediately before the 'carpark' and gate and walk up the hill towards the weather station, it was feeding in the long grass in the fenced off area on the left.

Since area relatively undisturbed good chance this is the bird that been reported intermitently since the beginning of the year, also 1 Ring Ouzel at Weybourne in the field south of the pool.

 

[lomond]

Buxton Heath

Hi all.
A little look at buxton heath tonight for 2hrs, parked in the first little opening
opposite bungalow on right, walked straight through right hand gate on to heath.
First bird was a kestrel then a little further in was chiff chaff as i walked round there was a number of yellow hammers, 2 willow warblers, 2 turtle doves, gspecker fly over, Herd a raptor call possable buzzard but did not see it. 3 roe deer walking through reeds. 1 blackcap 5 black birds, 1 crow fly over
2 swallows over, 4 long tailed tits, several great tit and blue tits.
Hope to go back over the week end in the evening as it is only 5 mins down the road from my house. will report back.

Barry.:t:

 

[Connor Rand]

Another good after school birding session. Started of at Choseley where 15 Dotterels showed reasonably well (better than last week anyhow....) at 7:10pm. Then moved on to Thornham Paddocks where a singing Turtle Dove showed well. Finally a stop at Hunstanton South Beach was in order. Found a 1st summer (prob male) Blue-headed Yellow Wagtail in with 5 normal Yellow Wags, it had quite a striking white supercillium and a 'necklace', as well as, a whiteish throat, greyish upperparts and darker ear coverts and top of head. I'm confident it was flava but does the latter feature firmly rule out flava/flavissma? Or the white throat?

Cheers,

Connor

 

[Colin]

Hi everyone,
Have been busy moving house and not been doing too much birding. Having got internet connected, I note that Tim Allwood seems to be missing from the threads. A quick check suggests that he last posted in Feb when I went off air for my move. What has happened to him, is he ok or is the info classified!!! or am I just mistaken and he has been posting?

 

[Ilya Maclean]

Looking pretty phenomenal for rare stuff this weekend:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e039/ilyabirding.htm#outlook

 

[Richard Abr]

Tim

Hi everyone,
Have been busy moving house and not been doing too much birding. Having got internet connected, I note that Tim Allwood seems to be missing from the threads. A quick check suggests that he last posted in Feb when I went off air for my move. What has happened to him, is he ok or is the info classified!!! or am I just mistaken and he has been posting?

I'd wondered the same about Tim myself, but he must still be in the land of the living. If you go to first posting on Norfolk thread - his posting - check out his public profile and go on his website and you will see his diary updated to April 30th, and he saw the BLACK LARK!!
Cheers
Richard

 

[Reader]

Hi Colin

I don't know about BF but I spoke to him on the phone a few times last week whilst I was in the area and he seemed ok.

John

Hi everyone,
Have been busy moving house and not been doing too much birding. Having got internet connected, I note that Tim Allwood seems to be missing from the threads. A quick check suggests that he last posted in Feb when I went off air for my move. What has happened to him, is he ok or is the info classified!!! or am I just mistaken and he has been posting?

 

[NoSpringChicken]

Hi everyone,
Have been busy moving house and not been doing too much birding. Having got internet connected, I note that Tim Allwood seems to be missing from the threads. A quick check suggests that he last posted in Feb when I went off air for my move. What has happened to him, is he ok or is the info classified!!! or am I just mistaken and he has been posting?

He has his own website now 'Apalling Birding' and doesn't post on here anymore. You can obtain the address from the first post on this thread.

Ron

 

[Ilya Maclean]

I'd wondered the same about Tim myself, but he must still be in the land of the living. If you go to first posting on Norfolk thread - his posting - check out his public profile and go on his website you will see his diary updated to April 30th, and he saw the BLACK LARK!!
Cheers
Richard

Tim's fine. I've been birding with him several times. I think he's just a bit bored of BF and switched to reporting all his stuff on his website. I think part of the reason was that a lot of the people posting on this thread appear to be reporting seeing the stuff that's on the pagers that everyone knows about, which is not something he has much time for:

http://www.freewebs.com/eastnorfolkbirding/articles.htm#158740482

Full credit to those that do, but it would be really nice to hear from you a few more people that are going out and looking for their own stuff as otherwise it becomes rather predictable what people see.

 

[David Norgate]

Saw the Black Kite at Pensthorpe today (having gone to check out a report on a Hoopoe from there). My record shots of the bird show it to be one of the birds seen in East Norfolk and, if memory serves me correctly, in Suffolk. It has a single 'hole' in the left wing and missing a couple of primaries. Suggestions were that this showed captive origine, but I wondered about gunshot?(!)

Also at Pensthorpe, pr Garganey, pr LRP and Common Tern. The 'wild' Crane is still there with the three free-flying females (also managed to get some lovely pics of Corncrake...will be interesting to see what Springwatch brings up when it goes there later!!)

 

[Penny Clarke]

will be interesting to see what Springwatch brings up when it goes there later!!)

Kate for one, for all the men folk!!!, pity Simon's not there too, never mind!

 

[Songkhran]

Full credit to those that do, but it would be really nice to hear from you a few more people that are going out and looking for their own stuff as otherwise it becomes rather predictable what people see.

here here (apologies about the Richard's)

i'd love to be talking about the hirundine passage that i'm getting off the bump each morning and that 6.30 - 7.30 seems to be the peak time for swallows and also the confusion that corvids seem to suffer when they come insight of the bump - do they go east or west- but i get the impression noone would be that bothered. i find the patterns of migration and the affect of the weather more interesting than pager tales. Nevertheless theres definitely a place for that as well, i reakon it might be just that people only feel they should post stuff if it qualifies as 'rare'. it be great to hear more about people going out and finding their own stuff and noting interesting phenomena even if its to do with relatively common stuff,

There also seems to be alot of people who read the thread but don't post anything - they must be seeing loads of stuff, be nice to know their experiences.

 

[Ilya Maclean]

here here (apologies about the Richard's)

i'd love to be talking about the hirundine passage that i'm getting off the bump each morning and that 6.30 - 7.30 seems to be the peak time for swallows and also the confusion that corvids seem to suffer when they come insight of the bump - do they go east or west- but i get the impression noone would be that bothered. i find the patterns of migration and the affect of the weather more interesting than pager tales. Nevertheless theres definitely a place for that as well, i reakon it might be just that people only feel they should post stuff if it qualifies as 'rare'. it be great to hear more about people going out and finding their own stuff and noting interesting phenomena even if its to do with relatively common stuff,

There also seems to be alot of people who read the thread but don't post anything - they must be seeing loads of stuff, be nice to know their experiences.

I agree entirely. People have many different reasons for birding, I'm not discrediting tales of pagering around Norfolk if that's what floats your boat.

However, I'd fully encourage you to post your tales of "vis mig" in relation to weather. I for one am much more fascinated by the effects of weather on birds find it more intersting to speculate about what's goint to turn up or to build up a picture in my head of whats going on around Norfolk in relation to migration. I find it far more intersting to know that, than to find out that person x is the 100 and umteenth person to have see the Dotterel at Choseley.

Am I the only person that witnesses huge flocks of hirundines moving in front of weather fronts? Is it just my chance observations, or does there appear to have been an uncharactistic movement of grey wags & corvids going on last week? Was the Blue-headed Wagtail invasian on the East coast last week typical of elsewhere? Is it just me or do Garden Warblers and Willow Warblers seem to be suprisingly abundant this year and Reed Warblers to have arrived later than usual. That's the kind of thing I'm interested in finding out, which a forum like this should be ideally equipped to answer.

Anyway, as I said previously - I belive things are looking really good for this weeked. I'd fully encourage people to go out, leave their pagers at home and see what they can find for themselves.

 

[matt green]

Four Hobby's present along with calling Cuckoo (had another two on local patch back home!) at Redgrave and Lopham Fen this afternoon, plus good numbers of butterly species, insects including Large Red Damselfly? and MASSES of Grass snakes!!

Nice reserve if you're in the area...

Matt

 

[David Norgate]

Ilya and pomskua,
I agree with your posts, stressing that a forum like this should cater for all Norfolk bird watchers. However, I feel that it must be a two way process. I enjoy reading your posts, and some of your observations are of particular interest.

I don't think it will change (or develop) if people do not include the type of information they would like in your posts (at the time they happen), but also how about people responding to the queries ask on this forum - what about Connor's Wagtail, or the observation I made about the Black Kite. Does no-one have an opinion? If not just a courtousy comment I feel would make people more likely to post their observations.

Yours hopefully,
local patch worker (inland!) and Norfolk Twitcher!
David

PS: Ilya -
yes to hirundines, didn't notice wagtail or corvid movement inland, found a Blue-headed Wag inland, yes to Garden Warbler - no to Willow! Reeds seem late, but I'm not patching the best habitat!

 

[Richard Abr]

Simon

Kate for one, for all the men folk!!!, pity Simon's not there too, never mind!

Any know what remote spot Simon will be on!!
Richard