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East Norfolk, 31/08/10

Something snapped yesterday, the terrible realisation that a return to work was once again inevitable. My response: bird. And bird hard.
Happisburgh was first stop on the agenda, a favourite site of mine but under watched of late, no doubt due to the acceptance of a patch. The coast watch was quiet, but glorious. The clifftop walk produced a Wall Brown Butterfly, my third ever and second in this spot! At sea, 10 Eider flew north along with 3 Curlew. 2 Sand Martin were clearly reluctant to leave, and Sandwich Terns were seemingly on the move. Managed to turn up a total of zero migrants despite some serious pishing down Doggetts Lane, but field inland of the cliffs interestingly held a number of large juvenile Gulls, Lesser Black Backed and Herring, which appeared to be sheltering 7 Sandwich Tern! An odd sight.
Surlingham was equally stunning in the late summer sun, and here a new bird was added to the fledgling patch list: a Hobby, which at first I thought was just showing off, but infact was being mobbed by Swallows, so this individual did not hang around. A drink in the Ferry House was much needed; this should be more of a regular stop I decided.
Picked Debs up from work and drove out to Waxham. We managed to locate the Red Backed Shrike, and watched this great little bird from the dunes in the fading light. Despite a trundle through the dunes, no Wryneck, but another birder told us it had been seen, showing well. A Lesser Whitethroat and Wheatear were the other birds of note.
As with last year, the last few days of the school holidays proved some of the most productive of the lot. Back to it for me, but with the decent weather set to continue until at least the weekend, one or two evening trips are in the pipeline.

Comments

  1. James Appleton3 September 2010 at 14:13

    Never got to look for your Terns Jim but did see a group of c.60 Sandwich resting with Gulls in a field just inland from Walcott the same afternoon...

    ReplyDelete

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