Work In Progress

Thursday morning we did the touristy thing for our last day in Norfolk and took a boat trip out to Blakeney Point to see the seals with the rest of our party. There were some beligerent folks on the boat, who insisted on bringing with them dogs of grisly bear size propotions - why on earth?? Anyway, there were good numbers of both Common and Grey Seals on the point, lots of pups as well. Quite a few GBB Gulls hanging around the pups, no doubt hoping for a seal pup to die. Spectacular numbers of Knot, Dunlin and Brent Geese visible from the boat. Also much smaller numbers of Sanderling – always an entertaining bird. On the way back into shore, we saw a couple of interesting pipits, didn’t look like Meadows, I would hazard a guess at Water Pipit; these had been reported around the area in the last few days. Unfortunately as we were moving and didn’t get a proper look, it was an inconclusive sighting. Would have liked to get a proper look as I need more pipits on my list and badly need to get to grips with Id-ing them.

Here's a pic of the Seals from the boat trip.

In the afternoon we went off on our own, firstly to the beach at Wells. The plan had been to spot a Shag, which is still missing from our year list and had recently been reported from the harbour. We should have checked the tide table, as the tide was right out, making a Shag in the harbour highly unlikely. Had a scan over the beach and although there was nothing unusual about, the swirling flocks of waders, particularly Knot and Dunlin, were a sight to behold. Scanned the rocky area, in hope of a Purple Sandpiper – none of those around, but there were a few more Turnstone, Grey Plover, Ringed Plover, Bar Tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher and Curlew.

We then decided to head back to Salthouse for a final stab at those elusive Lapland Buntings. The flock of Snow Buntings were quickly detected once again and as mobile as ever. After walking over the shingle ridge and back down again we were able to get within 10 feet of about 20 Snow Buntings that had settled on the shingle. I love these birds! I spent a while checking through them – they were all Snows. However, a smaller group of about 5 Buntings then appeared on the grass near the car park – I got them in the scope and found 2 Lapland Buntings (lifer!). We were ecstatic about this - our 5^th lifer of the trip and 180 now on our life list! Also delighted to have achieved most of our target birds for the trip (apart from Purple Sandpiper and Waxwing).

Our luck was just about to run out though. En route back home we stopped at Roydon Common near Kings Lynn, to look for a Great Grey Shrike reported on Bird Guides. We didn’t find it, despite spending a couple of hours there. My excuse is that is was too windy and I’ve heard they don’t like the wind, that had also been the story when we recently looked for one at Cannock Chase. We saw a Sparrowhawk, Coal Tits, Great Spotted Woody and we had a Merlin come over. It was a such a great holiday, some great ticks and I got used to our new scope – what a difference it makes to our birding! I’ll be back soon with news of latest sightings and with my new years birding resolutions (something I’ve been contemplating throughout my holiday).