Dave, Ken and I had decided to
give the Lesser Yellowlegs at Frampton another go today. However as we were travelling towards
Peterborough news was that a Black-winged Pratincole at Stiffkey Fen yesterday
evening was still present today. After a
discussion we decided to continue on to Norfolk as the pratincole was a better
bird.
When we arrived on site the
news was good as it was still present.
It was a short walk along a rather over grown footpath to get to the sea
wall and then look back over the fen. On
reaching the lookout point there was quite a crowd but unfortunately the bird
was out of sight. There were plenty of
birds on the area including six Spoonbills and a number of waders that were not
easy to identify due the sun and heat haze.
We established where the pratincole was last seen and focussed on the
area. After a fairly short wait it
walked into few and we could see it was clearly a pratincole but couldn’t
eliminate either of the other two species and it soon disappeared into the
vegetation again. Over the next two
hours when we were on site we saw the bird on several occasions and it raised
its wing one occasions and also made a short flight to another island, when I
could see there was no white trailing edge to the wing but it was not possible
to establish the under-wing colour. We
also saw four Little Egrets, a Marsh Harrier over Blakeney Point, a couple of
Oystercatchers, five Avocets, a couple of Ringed Plovers, a Ruff, c.100
Black-tailed Godwits, at least three Common Sandpipers, a Green Sandpiper,
fourteen Spotted Redshanks, three Greenshanks and at least two Redshanks. Two Mediterranean Gulls were also observed.
High tide in Blakeney Harbour
We eventually decided to move
on to Titchwell as the pratincole seemed destined not to perform any
better. We made a brief stop at Burnham
Overy Staithe for lunch and saw a Marsh Harrier but very little else.
At Titchwell we walked along
the west back as far as the beach. There
were seven Red-crested Pochard on Thornham Pool, which were probably a family
party. As we walked a little further we
had three juvenile Bearded Tits in flight over the reedbed with one perching
briefly. The water levels on the fresh
marsh looked excellent for waders and there were at least 150 of both Avocet
and Black-tailed Godwit but there was also a party of thirty-four Dunlin with a
superb summer plumaged Knot amongst them.
There was a single moulting Spotted Redshank not too far away and there
were at least three Bar-tailed Godwits amongst the Black-tailed and also
several Ruff. Something spooked then at
one point and a Golden Plover flew over towards Thornham Marsh before turning
and coming back down on the marsh. Dave
then found a stint that was pretty distant but we agreed that it was almost
certainly a summer plumage Little Stint.
There were at least eleven Spoonbills roosting on one of the distant
islands but as is often the case they were pretty inactive.
Volunteer Marsh was
disappointing with very little and the water in the far channel that can be
good for waders was still high. On
reaching the beach there was very little both on the shoreline and the
sea. We did find five Common Scoters and
a Great Crested Grebe on the sea and three Little Terns and two Sandwich Terns
were observed over the sea. The only
waders on the shoreline were a few Oystercatchers and six Bar-tailed Godwits.
Swallow at the end of the west bank
We walked out to the Parrinder
hide on the way back and found an adult and a juvenile Little Ringed Plover and
a single Ringed Plover before all of the birds were spooked again and this time
even the Spoonbills were up. All we
could see was a distant Marsh Harrier and felt that this was unlikely to have
caused such a commotion. As the
Spoonbills returned we able to establish that there were twenty as they landed
in the water. We also saw three
Greenshanks and at least five Spotted Redshanks and I counted fifteen
Ruff. On walking back we had heard
several Whimbrel calling but we didn’t manage to see any of them. There were two Red-crested Pochards on the
reedbed pool with both showing bright red bills indicating that they were
eclipsed males; a Cetti’s Warbler was also heard. Four Marsh Harriers were observed, two over
the reedbed and two over Thornham Marsh.
Spotted Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Spoonbills
House Martin in Newton Harcourt, Leicestershire
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