sh4rpy's birding blog: Day Listing

Sunday 21 April 2013

Day Listing

As promised an account of our trip to the Brecks and Norfolk on Saturday 19th April 2013.
An earlier start than usual leaving at 05:00. After scraping the frost from my car windscreen I picked up Dave and we made our way to the Harvester in Garston where we met Brendan and Paul. Brendan was driving and we set off for the Brecks to have a quick look for Stone Curlew. We arrived just after 06:15 and it was a bit misty with quite a heavy frost. We had a quick look for Stone Curlew but none were visible. We didn't want to waste too much time here so we headed for Wolfreton near Sandringham. Unfortunately for us after a couple of circuits of the "Golden Triangle" no Golden Pheasants were to be found. We did see a Nuthatch collecting mud for it's nest hole from roadside verge. Titchwell was the next destination to be punched into the twat-nav. On route we stopped at some fields near Sherborne (I think?). Here we saw c6 Grey Partridge. Then another stop, this time quite close to Titchwell at Choseley. More Grey Partridge here along with; Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer, Linnet, Marsh Harrier. Then on to Titchwell. As usual a good selection of birds were on offer here, the most notable being; Brambling, Willow Warbler, Cetti's Warbler, ringtail Hen Harrier, Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, Pintail, Little-ringed Plover, Ruff, Spotted Redshank, Scaup, Whinchat.
From Titchwell we headed in the direction of Cley with the intention of visiting Walsey Hills NOA where Ring Ouzels had been reported. On route near Burnham Norton the news services reported 7 Cranes in our general area. So we looked a decent place to park and waited hoping to catch sight of the Cranes. Sure enough after about 10 minutes they appeared gently thermalling their way along the coast. They seemed to linger for a while near to where we were offering us good views for about 20 minutes. So on to Walsey Hills NOA. No Ouzels here but Lesser Whitethroat offered some consolation. Cley was next up and a brief sea-watch. A fair few Sandwich Terns were all we could manage. A walk to the North Hide produced a few Wheatear and our first Dunlin of the day. Not a great deal from the hide either so we headed back towards the car park. On our walk back there were lot's of Meadow Pipits and then a "different" looking pipit caught our attention. On closer inspection it turned out to be a Water Pipit. We decided not to go onto the reserve at Cley itself but instead head to Holme where again Ring Ouzels and been reported and also a Redstart. The actual location given by the news service's was quite confusing and despite our best efforts we couldn't find the birds. In fact I'm not so sure we even found the right location although we did add Mistle Thrush to our day list! If your still reading you would be right to assume it was getting quite late in the day. We set off for home and called in at Wolfreton and the Brecks again. Same result at Wolfreton but better luck in the Brecks where we connected with 2 Stone Curlew. Also in the Brecks we saw Siskin, Redpoll, Wheatear. A decent end to our day. As the title of this post suggests we decided to keep a "day list". The total number of species= 107. A full list in my previous post here http://sh4rpysbirding.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/norfolk-and-brecks.html
Paul Frost's pics below.