Wednesday 6 February 2013

Black Bellied Peasy


A bit of an obscure blog title!
A mid week trip to Norfolk with Brendan and Paul. An earlier start than normal had us arriving at Wolferton in search of Golden Pheasant at around 07:30. Despite spending some time cruising the Wolferton "golden triangle" we couldn't find any Golden Pheasants.
Titchwell was our next stop. A Treecreeper near the car park and then 7+ Brambling and a Siskin near the reserve centre was a decent start. The weather was not great, strong winds and light rain showers meant the birding here was a little harder going than normal for this reserve. The main species of interest; Marsh Harrier, Pintail, Shelduck, Brent Goose, Kingfisher, Curlew, Golden Plover, Snipe, Dunlin, Spotted Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit, all on the reserve. On the beach; Grey Plover, Knot, Sanderling, Bar-tailed Godwit. On the sea a single Common Scoter and c10 Goldeneye.
From Titchwell we headed over to nearby Choseley Drying Barns; Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer, Red-legged Partridge.
Our next stop Holkham Pines; Marsh Harrier, White-fronted Goose (c20), Pink-footed Goose (c10). Also here 2 Barn Owls quartering the fields at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and the weather wet and windy.
Our bogey site of Lynford Arboretum was our next port of call. This site is well known for it's Hawfinch's. We have visited this site on numerous occasions and have encountered only one very distant Hawfinch and a brief view at that. So we were pleasantly surprised to find two Hawfinch's perched up in a Hornbeam in the paddock area. They offered us good scope views for about 20 minutes. Time was getting on and we were keen to see the Black-bellied Dipper in Thetford. Once again our luck was in and after a short walk we soon found the very confiding Black-bellied Dipper.
Still some light left in the day so we headed for Thetford Tesco's. 10 donuts for 99p not bad. Waxwings had been reported in the area but we could only manage 3 in flight. Also of note here up to 1000 Starlings in a pre roost murmeration. 
variable quality pics as usual below; Black-tailed Godwit at Titchwell, Hawfinches at Lynford Arboretum, Black-bellied Dipper at Nun's Bridges, Thetford.






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