A day’s birding in Norfolk, Suffolk & Rutland - May 1, 2013

I was out with Roger and David today and our plan was to visit Weeting Heath for Stone Curlew, Lakenheath Fen and Barton Bendish for a Woodchat Shrike.

We arrived at Weeting at around 08:30 having made rather a large detour due to road works on the A11.  We entered one of the hides and Roger eventually found a single Stone Curlew sitting on the ground that provided good views.  We also located a single Wheatear from the hide and a single Tree Pipit on the other side of the road.

Tree Pipit

At Lakenheath Fen we walked from the centre to the Joist Fen viewpoint.  There were clearly plenty of warblers present, particularly Whitethroats and Sedge and Reed Warblers as we heard quite a few of all of them but actually saw very few.  We also had our first Cuckoo of the year and three Hobbies were observed over New Fen.  There was also a Bittern booming from New Fen and a second was heard from the fen viewpoint but we saw neither.  We heard three Cetti’s Warbler and had brief views of one on them from the Joist Fen viewpoint.  There was also at least six Marsh Harriers and all of those that came close were males of varying age.  After spending quite some time overlooking the fen from the viewpoint we walked back along the river.  It was noticeably much quieter now but we did add a few species for the day and found a Whooper Swan on the wash land, which was probably an injured bird.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Reed Warbler

Hobby

After some lunch in the now nice warm sunshine we left for Barton Brendish but there was no sign of the Woodchat Shrike present for the last few days and all we had was a single Lesser Whitethroat and two Whitethroats and a  constant flypast of F-15 Strike Eagle aircrafts. 

With still some time left in the day we came back to Rutland Water and were rewarded with the Great Northern Diver and an Arctic Tern in the north arm.  We then had a quick look on lagoon one were we found a female Pintail and eight Common Terns before we had to leave.

It had been a good day out despite the disappointment of the Woodchat Shrike.

Immature Cormorant over the north arm at Rutand Water