Wednesday 29 April 2015

Norfolk 24 - 25 April 2015

A brief 2 day visit, which on the 24 took us first of all to Roydon Common where we found ourselves alone initially, and a walk around the western end revealed there were still 8 Ring Ouzels present, plus we managed to pick up a couple of Wood Lark, but the best birds of the visit were 6 Cranes which we initially picked up from calls, that flew right over us at about 200 feet calling still, heading south, which surprisingly seemed not to have been heard or seen by the couple of other visits that were now present.

View east over the common

 Grazing ponies

The wind was beginning to pick up a little, and clouding up, so having not been to Snesttisham Coastal CP for some years we decided to try and have a look at the Little Bunting, which despite people have been looking a while had not been seen until Denise picked it up feeding under the coastal bushes. We picked up a female Redstart on the walk back, plus heard but did not see the calling Cuckoo, and four make Cetti's were singing.

We then headed to Titchwell, that was unfortunately not to busy with wading species with only a few of odd species present, apart from the many Avocets, and 3 pairs of Red-crested Pochard.

The following day, 25 on the way to Holme we stopped off at Choseley to see the three Dotterel, and had a look at a couple more Ring Ouzels at Thornham cricket pitch before dropping in at Holme. Holme was fairly quite, though we had a look for the White-taield Eagle tracking west along the coast, but had heard it had doubled back east, so left the sea watch point for a walk in the dunes, but it later doubled back west again and passed an hour and 20 minutes later for those that persisted, but was quite far out, and not as spectacular views as it might have been. A few butterflies were around,  but it was a litle windy, but we did get to see the first Green Hairstreak for this year.

 Peacock

 Speckled Wood

 Green Hairstreak