Adey Baker
Member
Cley has suffered similar inundations in the past and recovered but one wonders how many more times they'll spend large amounts of money to bulldozer-up the shingle bank to protect what is a relatively narrow strip of flat land.
Thanks Kathy:t:Hi Penny
I enjoyed reading your account of your day, interesting to know what happens on a birders day out.
Love the Starlings - beautiful array of colours that they have. All your other pictures too, and the areas that they show.
Regards
Kathy
another blistering seawatch at sheringham
slow start with just a few little auks and poms but poms gradually picking up through the morning and total up to 2.30pm of around 75 all going east, about 5% sub ads.
at 11.30 the floodgates openned and we then had about 1000 lil auks in about 1 1/2 hours, flocks of up to 25. There was literally too much to look at and it has its perils, i was looking east and in a rather bored way called 'scoter' , noone looked, just when my subconscious was meeting my conscious thought that this was indeed an interesting bird, two pale patches either side of eye, big, triangular bill, no white on wing, someone shouted ad pom and i got distracted, i picked it up again flying away, a small short winged bird with very white belly, unable to get anyone else on it, but only people who saw it were not in my part of the shelter, with realisation that it was 1st win fem Surf Scoter i had to apologise to the regulars who thankfully were very forgiving - repeat a hundred times, when seawatching if anything looks unusual wake up, start shouting no matter what.
Also had first self find stormy, few sooties, arctic skuas and frostbitten finger.
Seawatching from the visitors centre produced, 1 grey phal on the sea.
On a serious note i saw the devastation at Cley, and although i'm probably raging against an unstoppable element i think more could have been done by government/ forecasters. I watched the news the night before and the correspondent at yarmouth when asked if salthouse/ cley was going to be ok said that ' as far as they knew the fences had not been breached' they obviously were making it up and did not have a clue. I then heard a minister say that they only knew about the sea surge / winds on thursday morning, i thought their forecast was pathetic, worse than a Michael Fish wet dream, any birder could have told them this was going to happen this time last week. They are now all wiping their brows and saying that was a close one, and washing any environmental damage under the carpet. There could have been more warning and possibly with the advanced sluicing system at Cley maybe something could have been done.
A cracking morning all round at Holme NOA today with a wide variety of stuff, despite not being able to locate the female Surf Scoter! Totals in 5 hours 30 minutes (7:05-12:50am) (highlights in bold)
Connor Rand
I notice the Surf Scoter is on the NOA website for today!
I was hoping it was going to settle, but not sure now.
Over 100+ Little Auks from Sheringham this morning, but no identifyable skuas (I'll let Penny fill you in on the details! She does it so much better than me!)
Any comments from our east coast friends on the plover around Waxham (other than the obvious)?
Well done Penny sounds like an excellent day! Puffin especially is really nice! Interesting about the skuas and the Kittiwakes, most of the ones at Holme were moving at first light... Did others in east Norfolk have many at all?
Got the Norfolk bird and mammal report today from Cley NWT. As always an excellent read!
Cheers,
Connor
Hi Pomskua
Is this list for yesterday????? (Friday), because I was sitting in the shelters at Sheringham today (IF thats where you were) and there was no Surf Scooter and no where near as many as 1000+ little auks?????!!!!!!!!!
Best Wishes Penny
He'd do well to see a Surf mid-morning and post about it at 08:57! B
Can any norfolk folk help ....
Are the Taiga Bean's settled at Cantley ?
Has the/a Black Brant been seen in the last 48 hrs ?
Same with the Richards Pipits ?
Thanks for your help
jason