Songkhran
Well-known member
Well I'm glad my little doze of reverse psychology about it being a quiet autumn worked a treat - a day like today deserves a write up.
We arrived first thing at Burnham Overy Town and already it seemed something huge was afoot. Thrushes were congregated in the corner of the first field and a flock of Brambling indicated things were happening. Every bush chock-a-block with Thrushes as we headed to the dunes and once on the way to Gun Hill the full scale of what was happeing emerged. As you climbed over a ridge carpets of birds flushed away in front of you, flocks 100 strong were coming high in off the sea and spiralling and cascading down into the nearest cover, Thrushes swiftly moving off south as more pummelled in. The emotion you feel when this kind of event is unfurling bypasses mere pleasure and you feel fully emersed in the drama that is unfolding. You are witnessing a truly amazing spectacle and fully involved in it.
A slight lull in the proceedings made us check for smaller stuff and tiny Goldcrests and tired Bramblings flicking about in the elders. But really the dunes almost seemed to be sinking under the weight of this number of Thrushes. It took us a while to find our first Ring Ouzels, but for the rest of the day we were accompanied by the chack, chack, chack of these birds as the shot about from bush to bush. Into the woods and a few stripes on a high up pyllosc had my heart pumping for a second and although a nice find was slightly disappointed that our Yellow-browed did not have that extra few stripes. On the way back definitely that feeling that this was a rare event indeed, as the light fading drinking in something that is seldom repeated. Slight changes now occurring, Robins beginning to take up the mantle of the Thrushes by appearing everywhere we looked, Blackbirds significantly increasing but just Thrushes filling the sky and on every bush, every furrow, every tussock.
We arrived first thing at Burnham Overy Town and already it seemed something huge was afoot. Thrushes were congregated in the corner of the first field and a flock of Brambling indicated things were happening. Every bush chock-a-block with Thrushes as we headed to the dunes and once on the way to Gun Hill the full scale of what was happeing emerged. As you climbed over a ridge carpets of birds flushed away in front of you, flocks 100 strong were coming high in off the sea and spiralling and cascading down into the nearest cover, Thrushes swiftly moving off south as more pummelled in. The emotion you feel when this kind of event is unfurling bypasses mere pleasure and you feel fully emersed in the drama that is unfolding. You are witnessing a truly amazing spectacle and fully involved in it.
A slight lull in the proceedings made us check for smaller stuff and tiny Goldcrests and tired Bramblings flicking about in the elders. But really the dunes almost seemed to be sinking under the weight of this number of Thrushes. It took us a while to find our first Ring Ouzels, but for the rest of the day we were accompanied by the chack, chack, chack of these birds as the shot about from bush to bush. Into the woods and a few stripes on a high up pyllosc had my heart pumping for a second and although a nice find was slightly disappointed that our Yellow-browed did not have that extra few stripes. On the way back definitely that feeling that this was a rare event indeed, as the light fading drinking in something that is seldom repeated. Slight changes now occurring, Robins beginning to take up the mantle of the Thrushes by appearing everywhere we looked, Blackbirds significantly increasing but just Thrushes filling the sky and on every bush, every furrow, every tussock.
) will be found tomorrow...
