Following storm Doris
yesterday, which had caused widespread disruption, today looked like being the
best day of the week and so David, Ken, Roger and I planned a day in West
Norfolk. However, as I had received an
invitation to Tim Appleton’s retirement party at Rutland Water this evening,
David and I agreed to meet Ken and Roger in the Egleton car park. I had picked David up and we were on our way
to Rutland Water when Ken called to say he had overslept and wouldn’t be joining
us.
Roger was waiting in the car
park as we arrived and we were soon on our way heading for the A1 near
Stanford, seeing two Red Kites before we reached Empingham. I didn’t see a great deal else until a
Buzzard flew over the road after passing through Burnham Market.
Our first target for the day
was the Shore Lark at Holkham and after parking at Lady Anne’s Drive we scanned
the fields to the east and found a couple of White-fronted Geese amongst a party
of Pink-foots. As we started to move
towards the pines a female-type Marsh Harrier flew over and after reaching the
beach we walked east and then out onto the saltmarsh to try and locate the
larks. There was an organised party that
were walking out about the same time and I noticed they had stopped and were
using their scopes and were clearly viewing something. As I approached they indicated that they had
the Shoe Larks and that they were feeding not too far away. I picked up several with my bins and the
beckoned David and Roger over. We
watched them for a while seeing them both on the ground and in flight but
eventually retraced our steps back to the car.
There were a couple of Buzzards over the pines and we had seen a mixed
flock of Brent Geese and Shelducks, with one of the Brent’s being a hybrid
Brent and Black Brant, which did show some characters of a Black Brant.
When we got back to the car we
scanned the fields to the west, where there were numerous Wigeon feeding in the
flooded meadow. There were also good
numbers of Teal and Redshank and we also found a single Snipe, a Black-tailed
Godwit and a Curlew. There was also a
Great White Egret a little further away and a distant Marsh Harrier, was
causing some disturbance. As we drove
back down the drive towards the road yet another Marsh Harrier was observed.
On reaching the road we headed
west towards Titchwell and on reaching the village we turned onto Chalkpit Lane
and did a circuit back to A469. We were
hoping for Grey Partridge and Corn Bunting but despite seeing over forty
Red-legged Partridge we didn’t see any Grey Partridge and there was no sign of
any Corn Buntings either.
We continued heading west and
on reaching Thornham turned onto Green Lane to observed the fields between the
village and the marsh but hadn’t seen anything of note before we turned along
Staithe Lane to the harbour. Our targets
here were Rock Pipit and Twite but there wasn’t any sign of either of
them. The tide was well out and there
were a few Curlew and Redshank feeding in the creeks, along with a Grey plover
and a Black-tailed Godwit.
Black-tailed Godwit
Black-tailed Godwit
Curlew
Curlew
We had noticed a photographer
near the old coal barn as we arrived and he was still showing some interest in
something as we got back to the car and so we walked over to check out what was
so interesting and he was photographing a couple of Spotted Redshanks, one of
which was quite obliging.
Spotted Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Whilst we viewing and
photographing the Spotted Redshank a Little Egret flew by and a Kingfisher flew
up stream and landed on one of the moored boats, using it as a vantage point.
Having got some nice shots of
the Spotted Redshank we headed off to Titchwell, where we had lunch before
venturing out onto the reserve, having thirty-five Curlew fly over and three
Bullfinches as we lunch.
We checked out the sightings
book in the centre and it appeared there was some good birds, with the sea
being productive early today. We checked
out the feeders at the back of the centre and found a Brambling feeding on the
ground and then continued to the West Bank path. We hadn’t gone too far when Roger alerted us
to a Barn Owl flying just behind the row of trees and on moving beyond the
trees we had clearer views but it was now further away.
There was nothing on Thornham
Pool but on hearing a Cetti’s Warbler calling, Roger and I saw it briefly in
flight and on waiting patiently it eventually flew again across a narrow strip
of water and landed on the reeds but disappeared almost immediately. When we reached the Freshwater Marsh the
water level had dropped since our last visit and there was some suitable wader
habitat beginning to appear but there were just two Oystercatchers, thirty-nine
Avocets and a few Dunlin.
After passing Island Hide
three birders indicated that there was a Mediterranean Gull amongst some
Black-headed Gulls. I scanned the party
of gulls but couldn’t find it and then David who had further instructions from
the birders got me onto it. Although it
looked a little larger than the surrounding Black-headed Gulls the hood
appeared wrong and I considered that it was just a Black-headed Gull, which was
proved correct as it turned sideways on revealing the primary pattern.
We continued along the path
and found a Ringed Plover on Volunteer Marsh and whilst viewing this I noticed
two waders fly over that appeared to come down on the Freshwater Marsh that I
suspected were Knot. I walked back and
found three Knot but they then flew and landed on Volunteer Marsh, where I
could to get David and Roger onto them.
When we reached the Tidal
Marsh an initial scan for a Greenshank produced several Pintail and Bar-tailed
Godwits but there was no sign of the Greenshank. David had gone further down the path and as I
approached him he said he had the Greenshank, which was feeding on a small pool
just beyond the Tidal Marsh.
On reaching the beach we could
see that there was still a considerable swell and although we found two groups
of scoter they were quite difficult to see well but we did eventually consider
that the more distant group were at least mainly Common Scoter, having seen
several raise their wings. We eventually
concluded that the nearer group did at least contain several Velvet Scoters and
walked further along the beach to get a better look. As we scoped them from further along the
beach we considered that they might all be Velvet Scoter, which was confirmed
when they took to flight. They flew
around several times before heading off west and disappeared.
The swell was making it
difficult in finding birds but we did eventually find several Goldeneye and a
single Great Crested Grebe and a male a female Goosander flying west were my
first at this site.
There were good numbers of
waders on the beach that included several hundred Oystercatcher, a few Grey
Plover, circa thirty Knot, 100+ Sanderling and forty plus Bar-tailed Godwits
but surprisingly I only saw three Turnstones.
As we started to walk back
there were more waders on the Tidal Marsh, that included a small party of
Dunlin, a couple of Grey Plover and a Knot.
When we reached the Freshwater Marsh, there were even more gulls and
another birder got us onto an adult Mediterranean Gull that was moulting into
summer plumage. Roger had noticed that
there were now several hundred Golden Plover on one of the more distant islands
and I then found a pipit, that I immediately recognised as a Rock or Water
Pipit but unfortunately it flew before I could anyone else onto it. Based on the heavy breast streaking and
olive-toned base colour I was sure that it was a Rock, rather than a Water
Pipit, where I would have expected less streaking and a whiter base colour.
When we got back to the car we
headed off home and had two Grey Partridge two to three miles from
Flitcham. We arrived back at Rutland
Water just after 17:30 after a pretty good day’s birding recording ninety
species, three of which, Greenshank, Mediterranean Gull and Shore Lark, were
new for the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment