The Love of Patching!

For the last couple of weeks, birding has been focused on the patch, so that my patch total for the year has the greatest chance of increasing as much as possible.

The first Little-ringed Plovers came in on the 6th April, with 3 present up to a week ago...

The first Swallow was also on the 6th, with the first 2 singing Blackcaps on the 7th. The first Willow Warbler was in at Wildwood on the 10th too. The first Nightingales were singing on the 15th along with the first Whitethroat and House Martins...

The first Sand Martins were feeding on the 19th, with Garden Warblers and the first possible 'Greenland' Wheatear was present on the 21st...

The first singing Lesser Whitethroat was present at Wildwood on the 22nd, and the first calling Tawny Owl, Hobby, Greenshank and Redshank on the 24th.

Redshank record shot

Then, a very productive 'tour' around the patch with David Walsh produced Sedge Warbler (scarce on patch), Cuckoo, Reed Warbler and Swift on he 26th. 

On the 29th April, my luck was in as I found a cracking Yellow Wagtail. All the following shots are phone-scoped.

A good record was a Red Kite over Brewery Farm, Earl Stonham the Saturday just gone, and first my returning Spotted Flycatcher came back to the usual wood by my school on yesterday.

Bird of the month so far though was undoubtedly today, as I was walking out from school, a pair of Sandwich Terns passed over flying north! That's an incredible record for the patch, and takes my total to 103 species. That is already 3 more than my total last year!

Happy Birding (and patching)!

Breckland Produces - Again!

On Sunday, Dad took me out to the Brecks again, to try and pin down some of the specialities, and also some early spring migrants. We started off at Great Livermere Lake, where a scan around picked up an slightly unusual gull sitting on one of the bars. My initial thought was Caspian, and lots of people said Caspian, but I'm no expert on finding and identifying scarce gull species. Here it is...

Further scanning around the lake produced 2 Mediterranean Gull, a late Pink-footed Goose and a lone Barnacle Goose which were the highlights...

We then went to look in the pig fields north of the lake to try and find an Iceland Gull which was seen the previous day. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it, but there was still hundreds of gulls that were not searched. 

We moved on north to Santon Downham, to try and look for a hopeful Lesser-spotted Woodpecker. After a lot of searching, we couldn't nail it down, but we did get several Nuthatch, Grey Wagtail, Brambling, Chiffchaff and Lesser Redpoll. The star of the visit had to be a cracking Firecrest however...

We then got a call from our good birding friend David to say that he had a pair of Wheatear and 4 Stone Curlew at Cavenham Heath, so that's where we headed next. After scanning around, we picked up one cracking male Wheatear, 8 Stone Curlews and a singing male Stonechat. I do love the brecks!!!

Happy Birding!

North Norfolk, A Mid Suffolk MEGA and a day of volunteering at RSPB Minsmere!

Wednesday 29th October 2014

This week was my half term week and the first day Dad had free so we could go birding. We thought we'd go for the Surf Scoter in Holkham Bay, and then wherever the birds take us. We arrived at Lady Anne's Drive at 11am, and as I scanned behind the flocks of Pink-feet, I picked up a Rough-legged Buzzard flying distantly towards Wells, its white rump very obvious. We got into Holkham Gap, and joined the small group of birders. Our first delight was a Slavonian Grebe, quite close inshore, and then we picked up the flock of Scoter. Bobbing in and out of view, the obvious white patches on the head picked out the cracking drake Surf Scoter, a lifer for both me and Dad! Great stuff!!! We didn't get any pictures though unfortunately.

We then headed to Cley, to try and find the Shorelark, but it had flown off by the time we got there, so we didn't waste the time, so we called into the Cley Visitor Centre, and got some cake. Yummy!!!

We then went to Burnham Overy Dunes for the rest of the day. We didn't see the reported Ring Ouzel, Whinchat nor any Lapland or Snow Bunting. We did find a brief Brambling, a flock of 200+ Golden Plover, and a Wheatear...

When we met David Norgate, he showed us a probable hybrid Black Brant x Dark-bellied Brent Goose that he had found. It was a nice bird to see, but it just didn't look right for the real thing!!!

Hoopoe!!!

After I played golf on the Thursday, Dad took me to see the cracking Hoopoe at Framsden in the afternoon. It was a great bird to watch...

Volunteering at Minsmere:

I was volunteering at Minsmere on Friday, being a guide on the reserve. I went out in the morning around the scrape with a couple of other guides, and we managed a juvenile Caspian Gull and an adult Yellow-legged Gull plus the usual waders/ducks. The gulls shot is just for the record...

In the afternoon, I was in Island Mere, and we got my first Goldeneye of the winter, the Great White Egret, 2 Bitterns and an Otter. An enjoyable day.

Very distant

Passing through Framsden to go to Cretingham to play golf, I enjoyed the Hoopoe again, and was delighted to show the bird to Mum. In the afternoon, an added bonus was an Osprey flying over! Brilliant.

Happy Birding!!!

Blakeney Point - 4th September 2014

Dad and I headed up to North Norfolk in hope of adding Ortolan Bunting and Black Tern onto my life and year list for the former, and just my year list for the latter. We decided to walk Blakeney Point, which considering we'd never done this before, seemed ambitious. We cheated a bit though, as we got one of Bean's Boat Trips (highly recommended) out to see the Seals, and then get off and walk back to Cley after landing on the point.

We got to the Seals, and they were fantastic to watch as always. Swimming by the boat or just doing what Seals do best...

We then got dropped off on the point by the National Trust Centre, and walked to the plantation. A Wheatear was very confiding on the way...

At the plantation, we saw 1 Redstart, 1 Pied Flycatcher, 2 Willow Warblers, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Spotted Flycatcher and 3 Whinchat. These were seen at about 14:00-15:00, and at about 17:00-18:00, there were 7 Redstart, 8 Pied Flycatchers and about 4 Spotted Flycatchers. This shows that birds were constantly coming in throughout the afternoon. We also had a Buzzard fly over too...

We were told that there was a Wryneck at long Hills, so we went to look for that. We flushed it from near the path were we saw it fly right in front of us, but landed quite a way from us, so we didn't bother to walk all the way back. We saw several Whinchat on the walk back, probably about 15 in total...

Waling back across the beach, we had a nice Bonxie fly east, but we also had a cracking juvenile Arctic Skua mobbing the terns just offshore. Incredible...

No sign of the Ortolan Bunting or any Black Terns, but still a pretty good day. However I don't think I will be walking Blakeney Point again in a hurry, as my legs felt like falling off when we finished to be honest, unless there is a MEGA perhaps.....

Happy Birding!