May 22, 2008
Norfolk in the rain
After a 4-year hiatus, long-time birding buddy Neil and I resumed our mid-May Norfolk/Suffolk Big Day, in highly un-promising weather. In heavy rain, we managed Stone Curlew and Curlew from the car in the Brecks, and spent a further hour birding from the car in Lakenheath car park (best bird being a Barn Owl). The heavy drizzle turned to light drizzle, so we decided to brave the trek out to where an adult pair of Red-footed Falcons had been hanging out. The birds were in their favoured dead trees, but for the 20 minutes we watched them they did little except blink the raindrops out of their eyes.
The walk from the car to the falcons was reasonably productive, yielding flight views of a male Golden Oriole and a heard-only booming Bittern. Driving through bearby farmland, we came across a Common Crane...
... and some skittish Roe Deer.
We headed up to the north Norfolk farmland in search of Grey Partridge, but had to settle for close-up views of a Red-legged.
By late morning, the rain had started to clear and one of the high points of the day was watching this male Montagu's Harrier hunting over rape fields.
A number of interesting migrants had been reported from Burnham Overy dunes the previous day, so we decided to spend a couple of hours there. I had a most unexpected amphibian lifer - a Natterjack Toad.
At first sight the dunes seemed devoid of migrants, although we did see bonus Grey Partridge and Stock Doves, as well as the more common breeders such as Linnets.
At the western end of the dunes, we finally ran into some migrants: a female Northern Wheatear (probably the Greenland race), this Whinchat...
... and a lone Whimbrel.
Even though birding had felt desperately slow at some points during the day, several waterbirds picked up at Holkham put us within striking distance of 100. A quick visit to Salthouse sorted us out with a nice selection of waders including Ruff, Little Stint and smart breeding-plumaged Dunlin and Turnstone.
En route back to Essex a flyover Great Spotted Woodpecker was our final addition to the day list.
Posted by rjhall at May 22, 2008 9:25 PM