Normal for Norfolk

Had a great weekend trip to Norfolk with Ed, and the team was reunited with Robbie and Sam coming as well - great stuff!

We left my house at 4:30am on the Saturday and picked Ed up on the way – getting to Cley for 6:40am.

It was extremely windy and the sea was rather rough so we were hopeful. The only worry was the wind direction as it was offshore. We still enjoyed good views of a bonxie and arctic skua. It was amazing to see so many red throated diver too – we had easily 25+ sightings over the 2 days. It was exciting to see quite a few birds coming in off too. With a few snipe, pink footed geese, wigeon and a peregrine which had a little go at a gull as it arrived.

Some pics from the sea watch:

Red throated diver:

Peregrine having a pop at a black headed gull (which is diving under):

Arctic skua:

We then decided to search Holkham pines for firecrest and yellow browed warb. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful on the YBW front but had fantastic views of firecrest. It was gloomy in the wood but with ISO 800 I managed to get a few shots of the FC I’m happy with (but a shame about that bloody green leaf in the way!!!):

After fish and chips from Wells we headed to Lady Ann’s drive to search more woodland. Nothing more of note here but a good 15 minute nap was had in the hide there until someone else arrived and we had to get up!!

Next stop was Tichwell RSPB where we bolted straight to Fen hide after hearing that a jack snipe was showing well. These guys will have probably only just come in off the sea in the past few days and were feeding frantically just in front of the hide. Despite looking down on them I got a few shots I’m happy with – such pretty birds:

We then made our way to the beach where Ed, Sam and I got completely soaked by the rising tide whilst trying to photograph sanderling. But it was all worth it:

On the walk back we noticed a small brown finch flying along the beach and our first thought was twite. After some waiting and stalking we finally got good enough views to confirm it was indeed a twite!! Terrible record shot:

We headed back to the hostel to dry off and get some food before bed.

The next day a relatively fruitless sea watch was had but a Juv arctic tern put in a brief appearance and a few manxies could be seen very far out.

After a full English breakfast we headed to Tichwell again to photograph the waders:

My favourite shot of the weekend was this knot(click it to view large):

We also had some great views of snow bunting:

These next shots may not be to some peoples taste but I am relatively happy with them as they are different:

On the drive home we checked birdguides and found that there was a buff breasted sandpiper and a glossy ibis on Paxton pits - GREAT we were going down the A1 anyway!! So we popped in and connected with both birds. The ibis was milling about right in front of us but the clouds meant no great colour in the bird was going to be captured:

It was a fantastic weekend and I can’t wait till we get some north easterlies – I’ll be shooting over there again no doubt!!

A few shots to finish:

Dan